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THE 



PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES 



WORKS BY THE AUTHOR. 

Some facts about Alsace and Lorraine, 1895. 

The Brooke Family of Whitchurch, Hampshire, England, 

together with an account of Acting-Governor Robert Brooke 

of Maryland and Colonel Ninian Beall of Maryland, 1899. 
The Alabama Arbitration, 1900. 
Emeric Crucd, 1900. 
The Alasko-Canadian Frontier, 1902. 
The Alaska Frontier, 1903. 
The English Ancestors of the Shippens and Edward Shippen 

of Philadelphia, 1904. 
The Swift Family of Philadelphia, 1906. 
Balch Genealogica, 1907. 
L'fivolution de I'Arbitrage International, 1908. 
La Bale d'Hudson, est elle une mer libre ou une mer ferm^e? 

1911. 
La Bale d'Hudson est une grande mer ouverte, 19 13. 
Differends juridiques et politiques dans les rapports des 

Nations, 191 4. 
"Arbitration" as a term of International Law, 1915. 
The Influence of the United States on the Development of the 

Law between Nations, 1915. 
Legal and Political International Questions and the Recurrence 

of War, 1916. 



THE 



PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES 



BY 



THOMAS WILLING BALCH 

A Manager of the Assemblies 1909-1912 
A Vice-President of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania 



FIRST EDITION 



Philadelphia 

ALLEN, LANE AND SCOTT 

1916 






Copyright, 1016, by 
THOMAS WILLING BALCH. 




DEC 27I9I6 

€)GI,A44l)960 



TO THE MEMORY 

of 

The Treasurer and the Managers 
of the 
First Assemblies 
I 748-1 749 
John Swift, Treasurer, 
John Inglis, 
John Wallace, 
Lynford Lardner. 



Having heard, by fame, 
Of this so noble, and so fair assembly, 
This night to meet here, they could do no less, 
Out of the great respect that they bear to beauty. 

Shakespeare, Henry the Eighth. 



PREFACE. 

AT an Assembly some twenty years ago in the 
- Foyer of the Academy of Music, it occurred 
to the writer that it would be interesting to 
collect what available material there might be in 
existence that would cast light upon those balls in 
the days when Pennsylvania was still a colony. 
The quest for facts resulted in revealing more 
manuscript information than had been hoped for. 
Gradually, year by year, new items of information 
turned up or were communicated now by one 
friend, now by another. The writer read a short 
paper on April i8th, 1902, before the American 
Philosophical Society upon the First Assembly Ac- 
count Book, kept by John Swift in 1748-49. Sub- 
sequently, in 1906, he wrote briefly about the 
Assemblies in the Pennsylvania Magazine, and 
again on October 21st, 19 14 in a paper read at the 
annual meeting of the American Antiquarian Society 
of Worcester, Massachusetts, he had something to 
say about the Assembly Balls in the past. Mean- 
while, in answer to a breif appeal for facts printed 
in January, 1906, in the Pennsylvania Magazine 
and the following mention by Mr. Perrine in the 



X PREFACE. 

Evening Bulletin, February 17, in 1906, new infor- 
mation gradually (^rifted in. ; The accomplished 
editor, of the Bulletin said : 

"Mr. Thomas Willing Balch has addressed hiin- 
self to the task — somewhat difficult by reason of 
the fragmentary character of the information now 
available — of preparing a history of the Philadel- 
phia Assembly. Such a narrative as he has in 
mind will embody in large part the social life of 
the city in its best estate during a period of four 
or five generations. The annual gatherings during 
the past generation are of course well known, but 
in their early, more interesting and perhaps more 
significant periods, they have been seldom described, 
as what is known of them is more traditional than 
authentic, or concerns a few bare facts here and 
there. How many of the descendants of the mem- 
bers of the old Assemblies when Philadelphia was the 
capital of the republic, are aware of the fact, for ex- 
ample, that one or more of the historic balls were given 
where The Bulletin office now stands [612 Chestnut 
Street], or of the nature of the rivalries which at that 
time engendered a Second Assembly. The opportu- 
nity imdoubtedly exists, for the production of a de^ 
lightful series of descriptions and reminiscences, and 
Mr. Balch, who undertakes the work solely as a 



THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. XI 

labor of love and who finds that the co-operation 
of all Philadelphians who have letters, diaries or 
manuscripts that may throw light on any phase or 
period of the subject, will be necessary to the com- 
pleteness of his plans, has submitted the following 
communication for reproduction from the Penn- 
sylvania Magazine of History and Biography: 

"'During the winter of 1748-9 nine Assemblies 
were given in Philadelphia. They were under the 
management of Lynford Lardner, John Inglis, 
John Wallace and John Swift. There were fifty- 
nine subscribers, and the entertainment was simple, 
John Swift, who acted as secretary and treasurer, 
had arranged, about 1740, a number of small dances 
or "assemblies," as they were called at that time, 
at his own house and that of some of his young 
friends. Since Colonial days the Assemblies have 
been given with fair regularity except when pre- 
vented by war or other interruptions, and yearly 
beginning with 1866. With the purpose of writing, 
the history of these historic balls, the oldest in the 
country, I shall be much obliged for the communi- 
cation of any facts or items relating to them.'" 

The author put off writing at length on the 
subject, partly owing to his interest in the study of 
International Law, and partly owing to the hope 



Xll , PREFACE. 

and desire to collect in his drag net more facts. 
Having an hereditary interest in the balls from 
their very inception, the author decided in the past 
simimer to write an essay on the historic develop- 
ment of the balls which would be printed as a 
first edition, his purpose being to add to and develop 
the work for a second edition. 

The author will be thankful for any fresh facts 
relating to the Assemblies: also if he has made 
any mistakes of dates or names or anything else, 
he will be glad to have them pointed out to him. 
It may be safely asserted that probably never was 
a genealogical work published without mistakes 
creeping into it, and there is much of a genealogical 
character in the present book. 

He has given more or less information concerning 
a number of the subscribers to the first Assembly 
Season of 1748-49; he would be glad for informa- 
tion concerning the other worthies whose signatures 
appear on that list, as well as additional facts 
about those of whose doings something has already 
been said. Likewise, he would be grateful especially 
for any facts that may narrow down the period of 
years between which the hst of graces, whose 
names will be found at page 70, attended the 
Assemblies or some other social function. 



THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. Xlll 

The writer still has some unused information 
poked away in odd corners, which he has not had 
time to round up : and he is on several trails which 
he hopes will eventually add additional facts. 

It may be advisable to point out here, that every 
social gathering in past times which was called an 
"Assembly" was not of necessity the historic 
Dancing Assembly. Also the Legislative Assembly 
should not be confused, as sometimes happens, 
with the Dancing Assembly. 

In the collecting of the material for this book, 
the writer has received help from many friends; 
Mrs. Thomas Balch, Charles Norris, Esq., the late 
Mrs. Isaac Starr (who was Miss Lardner), the late 
Miss EHse Willing Balch, the late Charles Morton 
Smith, Esq., Mrs. George McCall, Mrs. Cornelius 
Stevenson, Edward Swift Buckley, Esq., to men- 
tion only a few. Dr. I. Minis Hays, the Secretary 
of the American Philosophical Society has helped 
the author with the information in the archives of 
that venerable society. And in looking over the 
collections of the Historical Society of Pennsyl- 
vania (often times erroneously called by strangers 
the Pennsylvania Historical Society) and the Ridg- 
way Library, he has at all times been aided by 
Messrs. John W. Jordan and Ernest Spofford, respect- 



XIV PREFACE. 

ively Librarian and Assistant Librarian of the former 
institution, and Mr, Bunford Samuel, Librarian of 
the latter corporation. To them, as to every one 
else, he begs to offer his sincere thanks. 

As the present work has not been undertaken 
as a commercial venture, but as a small contribu- 
tion to the public knowledge of the history of 
both City and State, any profits that may ac- 
crue from the sale of this book, will be given 
to the binding fund of the Historical Society of 
Pennsylvania, a fund which sorely needs to be 
enlarged. 

This book has been written not in a spirit of 
fanciful imagination, but with a due appreciation 
that Clio, the muse of history, is a jealous mistress, 
who when offended by a careless or willful misstate- 
ment of fact, is sure sooner or later to exact an 
accounting by the light which some future devotee 
of hers will eventually turn upon such misdeeds as 
have been done to her injury. 

Finally, the author begs to say, that he hopes 
perhaps that this small book h propos of the Assem- 
bly Balls in the days before the Civil War, an 
almost forgotten bit of history in our time, may 
serve to recall to the possessors of an old set of bureau 
drawers or an ancient well worn trunk in the attic,. 



THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. XV 

the possibility of finding something relating to the 
Assemblies of the past. For as Herrick says : 

"Attempt the end, and never stand to doubt, 
Nothing's so hard, but search will find it out." 

T. W. B. 

Philadelphia, 
September 30th, 1916. 



INTRODUCTION. 

PHILADELPHIA and Pennsylvania as City and 
State respectively have both played important 
and leading parts, alike in the time of the colonies 
as well as since the Declaration of Independence, 
in the building and development of our country. 

In colonial days Philadelphia was the largest city 
of the Keystone Colony as to-day she is the largest 
city of the Keystone State, and it was within her 
gates that the First and the Second Continental 
Congresses met and took counsel together, that the 
Constitutional Convention which framed the present 
Constitution of the United States sat and deliberated, 
that Washington lived during the greater part 
of his presidency, and that the Supreme Court 
of the United States organized and began to sit 
to hear cases. Philadelphia can justly glory in 
having contributed to the material development and 
culture of the Nation through the acts of her indi- 
vidual citizens, and by the establishment of institu- 
tions which have served as a model to other parts 
of the country. The Contributionship Society, 

(1) 



2 INTRODUCTION. 

better known as the Hand in Hand, was started 
in 1752 to insure its contributors against loss from 
fire: it is the oldest fire insurance company founded 
in America. Another similar institution, the Mutual 
Assurance Company, also known as the Green Tree, 
was organized in 1784, and is the second oldest fire 
insurance company established in the country. In 
the Bank of North America, chartered by the Govern- 
ment in 1782, Philadelphia possesses the oldest bank 
chartered in the United States. The Philadelphia 
Club, begun in 1 834, is the first gentlemen's club in the 
country, and likewise, the Philadelphia Cricket Club, 
started in 1854, is the oldest cricket club in the 
United States. In the Shakespeare Society of Phila- 
delphia, started in 1 85 1 , the city founded by Penn has 
the oldest Shakespeare Society in existence. The 
Pennsylvania Hospital on Spruce and Pine Streets, 
started in 1 75 1 , is the oldest hospital within the Union. 
And in the American Philosophical Society, founded 
in 1727 by Franklin, Philadelphia is fortunate in 
possessing not only the oldest learned society 
within the United States, but also in the new world. 
Philadelphia is rich also in the number of her 
historical monimients. Besides possessing the Old 
Colonial State House of Pennsylvania, begun in 1732, 
in which the Pennsylvania Legislative Assembly 



THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. 3 

began to sit in 1736,^ and in one of whose halls 
the Declaration of Independence was voted by the 
Second Continental Congress, Philadelphia has in 
the two buildings close to that old State House, 
the buildings where the First Congress and the 
Federal Supreme Court under the Constitution of 
1787-89 respectively met, the former at Sixth, the 
latter at Fifth and Chestnut Streets. All that is 
well known throughout the length and breadth of the 
land. It is not so well known, however, that 
Philadelphia possesses also Old Swedes's Church, 
built from 1698 to 1700 on the site where the Swedes 
began to hold worship in 1677 in a log block house; 
and perhaps for historical accuracy, it may be well 
to remember that the Swedes built within the 
territory of what is now the State of Pennsylvania, 
their first church at Nya Goteborg on Great Tena- 
kongh or Tinicum Island, just outside the present 
city limits, at least as early as September, 1646. 
Philadelphia also has Christ Church built in the 
early part of the eighteenth century, where Wash- 
ington attended; Carpenter's Hall built from 1770 
to 1774 where the Provincial Congress of Pennsyl- 
vania was held in 1774 and the First Continental 

^ Frank M. Etting: The Old State House of Pennsylvania, known 
now as the Hall of Independence, 1876, pages 15-16. 



4 INTRODUCTION. 

Congress sat in 1775; the building that was the 
home of the First Bank of the United States (1791- 
181 1) of which Thomas Willing was President, now 
occupied by the Girard National Bank; likewise 
the building which housed the Second Bank of the 
United States (18 16-1836) of which Nicholas Biddle 
was President, now serving as the Philadelphia 
Customs House; the house of John Bartram, built 
in 1 73 1 and now surrounded by his botanical garden 
as a public park; and other buildings of historic 
importance. 

Three of the greatest military achievements in 
the annals of North America occurred within the 
bounds of Pennsylvania. It was from Philadelphia 
that a military expedition, made up in good part 
of Pennsylvania troops started, during the struggle 
known in Europe as the Seven Years' War and in 
this country as the French and Indian War, to 
cross the Allegheny Mountains and the virgin wilder- 
ness beyond them and successfully captured in 1758 
Fort Du Quesne. Built where the Allegheny and 
the Monongahela Rivers join in fonning the Ohio, 
which after coursing westward for several hundred 
miles merges its waters into the Mississippi or 
Father of Waters, Fort Du Quesne was a place of 
conmianding importance, and until its capture by 



THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. 5 

the English a barrier to their progress beyond the 
Alleghenies into the prairie lands of the Ohio. 
On the site of Fort Du Quesne, at the western end 
of the Commonwealth, by the energy and skill 
of Pennsylvanians the great city of Pittsburgh 
rose, a fitting memorial of the wisdom and skill of 
a British statesman who successfully led the British 
Empire through times of stress and peril. At the 
eastern end of the State, not far from Philadelphia, 
only a score of years later, our fathers, under 
Washington, Wayne, Miihlenburg, and other able 
captains, kept watch along the banks of the Schuyl- 
kill, during the bleak winter of 1777-78, in the 
encampment at Valley Forge. A little more than 
three quarters of a century later to the westward 
of the Susquehanna River and near the southern 
boundary of our State, the famous Mason and 
Dixon Line, at Gettysburg on the first three days 
of July, 1863, the Union Army under Meade, a son 
of Pennsylvania and also a Philadelphian, and his 
two lieutenants, Reynolds and Hancock, likewise 
both sons of Pennsylvania, defeated the Confederate 
Army under Robert E. Lee and so rolled back the 
high wave of the Confederacy. 

It was at Germantown that Pastorius, its founder 
and three other burghers of that settlement, made 



O INTRODUCTION. 

in 1688 the first public protest in America against 
slavery. 

Philadelphia through her individual citizens has 
made notable contributions to civilization. Ben- 
jamin Franklin, founder and President of the 
American Philosophical Society, besides being a 
statesman, added much to the scientific knowledge 
of mankind and to American literature. Of him 
Turgot wrote the inscription: Eripuit ccelo fulmen, 
mox sceptra Tyrannis.^ He was one of those who 
subscribed funds to send out about 1754 the first 
American exploring expedition to the Arctic regions. 
It started from Philadelphia. Rittenhouse observed 
the transit of Venus of June 3rd, 1769, at his private 
observatory at Norriton;^ and calculated the ele- 
ments of the future transit of December 8th, 1774. 
In 1 79 1 he succeeded Franklin as President of the 
American Philosophical Society. In recognition of 
his contributions to the knowledge of the world, 
he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. 

^ This is the version given by Condorcet on the title page of his 
JEloge de M. Franklin, lu a la seance puUique de I' Academic des 
Sciences, le 13 Nov. 1790, published at Paris in 1791. Condorcet 
ascribes it to Tvirgot under the date of 1775. The more generally- 
known version is, Eripuit coelo fulmen sceptrumque tyrannis. 

^ Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia, 
1 77 1, Volume I., page 8. 



THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. 7 

Fitch, a Pennsylvanian by adoption, built a steam-' 
boat which he navigated as a commercial venture 
on the Delaware River in 1792.^ 

The poets. Bayard Taylor and Thomas Buchanan 
Reed, have added to the poetic treasures of the 
world. The former, who was bom at Kennett 
Square in Chester County, not far from Philadel- 
phia, was a world wide traveller. He attended 
in 1874 the millennial celebration in Iceland, when 
an Icelandic translation of a poem he had written 
for the occasion was read. Besides his poetical 
works, he wrote Hannah Thurston and other novels. 
And he added a classic to the English language by 
his translation of both parts of Goethe's Faust. 
Reed, who was a painter of no mean ability, painted 
the historic picture, Sheridan's Ride, and also 
wrote the poem of the same name as well as The 
Wagoner of the Alleghenies. George H. Boker was 
the author of the well known play, Frances ca di 
Rimini. Benjamin West, who attained a high 
renown as a portrait painter and eventually was 
president of the Royal Academy in London, an 
honor not often conferred on a stranger, was born 

* To guard against any possible misunderstanding, it may be well 
to remember that Rittenhouse was not the first to observe the transit 
of Venus, nor Fitch the first to invent the steamboat. 



8 INTRODUCTION. 

in a house which now belongs to Swarthmore 
College just outside of Philadelphia. He obtained 
his early education as a painter here in Philadelphia 
and the many genuine portraits by him in this 
country give ample proof of the ability of this 
distinguished son of Pennsylvania. And a tablet 
on the house at the southwest corner of Spruce 
and South Sixth Streets tells both native and 
stranger that there was bom the best actor of the 
American comic stage, Joseph Jefferson. 

If Philadelphia, when called upon, has done her 
share in times of war, she has contributed sub- 
stantially also to the maintenance of peace between 
the Nations by means of judicial settlements. 

In 1693, after the statesman whose name the 
Commonwealth bears, had tried for a dozen years 
in Pennsylvania his theories of government, he 
published at London, An Essay towards the present 
and future peace of Europe, hy the establishment of 
an European Dyet or Estates. A second edition of 
this notable publication was printed at London in 
1696, it was reprinted at London in 1726 in the 
collected works of Penn, and again here in Phila- 
delphia in 1858 in the Publications of the Historical 
Society of Pennsylvania. He advocated the estab- 
lishment of a Central Parliament for Europe to 



THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. 9 

which the European States should send representa- 
tives, and urged strongly that all causes of difference 
which two States could not adjust by diplomatic 
means, should be referred to the central Par- 
liamentary body for judicial action. In case any 
State which joined the federation failed to bow before 
the judgment of the European Parliament and 
should take up arms, then "all the other Sovereign- 
ties, United as one Strength, shall compel the 
submission and Performance of the Sentence, with 
Damages to the Suffering Party, and Charges to 
the Sovereignties that obliged their Submission." 
In the various plans for world peace which since 
Penn's time have been urged upon the world, not 
a great deal that is new has been devised in the 
manner of compelling Nations to keep the peace. 
And with that rare gift which seems to belong 
only to the highest scholarship, Penn towards the 
end of his essay acknowledged his indebtedness to 
the Grand dessein of Henry the Fourth of France, 
though Penn, no more than other men of his time, 
realized that Henry's plan really was an attempt 
to displace the House of Hapsburg from the first 
place of power in Europe, and that the Grand 
dessein probably was the work of the Due de Sully. 
But Penn, who truly aimed to do away with war, 



10 INTRODUCTION. 

did much then and since by his essay to place for 
consideration before the English speaking world, the 
possibility of doing away with war between Nations, 
always supposing that that is an attainable end. 

That great philosopher and many-sided man 
already mentioned above, to whom Philadelphia is 
much indebted for having promoted and in some 
cases originated many of her most valued institu- 
tions, and who added vastly to the knowledge of 
mankind, the author of Poor Richard's Almanack 
was ever eager, while in favor of all needful de- 
fensive measures, to advance any sane plan that 
would help to make war less frequent, or curtail its 
area once it had broken forth. 

It was from a member of the Philadelphia Bar 
that came the proposal to submit the Alabama 
claims to an International Court for judicial settle- 
ment; and that proposal ripened into the great 
International Tribunal that, sitting in the Swiss 
city of Geneva in 1871-72, pronounced judgment 
between the United States of America and Great 
Britain concerning those claims, and by its decision 
based upon legal justice ended, by a judicial settle- 
ment, in peace and concord, that dispute which 
had arisen between two of the great powers of the 
world. 



THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. 11 

It was with Pennsylvania money, too, made in 
Pittsburgh, that the Palais de la Paix at The 
Hague was built. 

It is to the credit of Philadelphia, that, under 
the leadership of John Welsh, later on our Minister 
to England, she successfully inaugurated and carried 
through in 1876 the Centennial Exposition that was 
held in Fairmount Park, probably the finest city 
park in the world, even the Bois de Boulogne not 
excepted, in memory of the events of a century 
before. That great undertaking — ^to which not only 
all the States of the Union, but also all the Nations 
of the world, sent splendid exhibits of their in- 
dustry — she successfully carried through single hand- 
ed, with the exception of a small loan of five millions 
of dollars from Congress which the city subsequently 
repaid to the National Government. 

In founding in 1805 the Pennsylvania Academy 
of the Fine Arts with George Clymer as first presi- 
dent, Philadelphia established the first school in 
the country for the teaching of the Fine Arts. 

When away from home, however, it is an unusual 
thing to hear a Philadelphian praise the city, or 
her great citizens, whether past or present. In 1866, 
Horace Binney, who added to the luster of the city 
by attaining to the leadership of the United States 



12 INTRODUCTION. 

Bar and did many things for the advancement of 
Philadelphia, commented on the lack of apprecia- 
tion by Philadelphia of her own. He said^ that 
Philadelphia "is wanting in civic personality, or, 
what is perhaps a better phrase for the thought, 
a family unity or identity. She does not take, 
and she never has taken, satisfaction in habitually 
honoring her distinguished men as her men, as men 
of her own family. It is the city that is referred 
to, as distinguished, perhaps, from the rest of the 
State. She has never done it, in the face of the 
world, as Charleston has done it, as Richmond has 
done it, as Baltimore has done it, as New York 
has done it, or at least, did it in former times, 
and as Boston has done it and will do it forever. 
She is more indifferent to her own sons than she is to 
strangers." 

Binney tells us that this comment upon the 
city was not new, when he made it in 1866, for it 
had been made off and on before that for at least 
sixty years earlier. The accomplished editor of 
the Evening Bulletin, who writes under the name 
of "Penn" has suggested that one reason for this 

^ Horace Binney: The Leaders of the Old Bar of Philadelphia; Phila- 
delphia, 1866, page III. This quotation was communicated by 
S. Emlen Meigs, Esq. 



THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. 13 

lack of civic pride by the city founded by Penn 
in the deeds of her own may be accounted for in 
part by the fact that until 1854 the city as we 
know it to-day was really divided into a number 
of separate communities. 

The failure of Philadelphia and Pennsylvania to 
properly herald the contributions of their sons and 
daughters to the civilization of the world may be 
due in part, too, to the fact that of the original 
thirteen colonies, Pennsylvania was settled in the 
beginning by a greater diversity of races than any 
of the other twelve colonies. That diversity in the 
population of Pennsylvania, and the consequent 
difficulty of fusing the various races into one 
homogeneous people, was long intensified by the 
AUeghenies. Those mountains running from south- 
west to northeast across the State, geographically 
cut the Commonwealth into two parts, until the 
Pennsylvania Railroad was built and thereby joined 
the settlements on the two sides of the mountains 
commercially as well as politically. Consequently, 
in the beginning in colonial times and afterwards 
even into the first part of the nineteenth century, 
Pennsylvania did not have that unity of political 
thought and ideal which commonly belongs to a 
Commonwealth whose people all speak one and the 
same language. 



14 THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. 

THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. 

I. 

Among the things with a historic past of which 
the city founded by Penn in 1682 on the shores 
of the Delaware and the Schuylkill Rivers can be 
proud, are the Philadelphia Assemblies. Dating 
from the winter of 1748-49, when they were organ- 
ized and first given, they far outstrip in the remote- 
ness of their origin any other series of balls which 
are given in this country with the one exception 
of balls given by the Saint Cecilia Society of Charles- 
ton in South Carolina. And even the beginnings of 
that venerable southern society, the Assemblies of 
Philadelphia antedate by fourteen years. For the 
Saint Cecilia Society was founded in 1762, and in- 
corporated on March loth, 1784.® 

The word "Assembly" when used in a social 
way, meant in the eighteenth century that people 
who attended an Assembly gathered together in a 
social way upon a plane of equality. 

In the later years of the colonies, and the early 
days of the Republic, "Dancing Assemblies" were 

^ Information communicated by Thomas Wright Bacot, Esqr,, of 
Charleston, S. C, whose great-great-grandfather was one of the 
fotmders of the Saint Cecilia Society. 



THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. 15 

not peculiar to Philadelphia. Assemblies were held 
in many of the important centers near the Atlantic 
seaboard. Thus, for example, two cards still extant 
of the "Dancing Assembly," held in Savannah, 
Georgia, for the season of 1786-87 are the invita- 
tions to attend those Assemblies sent respectively 
to Miss Lawrence of Mulberry Hill, Monmouth 
County, New Jersey, of the family of "Don't give 
up the ship" Lawrence, and to Mrs. Le Conte, a 
member of a Savannah family.'^ 

The Washington Dancing Assembly began in 
December, 1796, almost a half century after the 
Dancing Assembly of Philadelphia was started.^ 
The Rev. Manasseh Cutler— a graduate of Yale, 
a distinguished botanist, a leader in forming the 
future State of Ohio and who has been credited 
with having drafted the "Ordinance of 1787" — 
when a FederaHst member of Congress from Massa- 
chusetts, makes a reference in his correspondence 
with his daughter, Mrs. Poole, "to the Assembly" 
held in the District of Columbia during his stay in 
the city of Washington. Writing from the city of 



^ In the possession of Mrs. Howard Gardiner. 

^Wilhelmus Bogart Bryan: A History of The National Capital;. 
New York, 1914, Volume I., page 292. 



16 THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. 

Washington, Feby. 21st, 1803, to his daughter, he 
says : — ^ 

"Some little time ago I dined at Mr. Balch's 
at Georgetown. Our company was large, mostly 
members of Congress. Miss Anna [King] was there. 
She is the most intimate friend and companion of 
Miss Harriet Balch. They attend together the 
boarding-school, dancing-school, and Assembly. Mr. 
and Mrs. King were invited, but unable to attend. 
My health did not permit me, as the weather was, 
to stay to tea." 

The young Harriet Balch of whom the Massa- 
chusetts divine and congressman speaks in his letter, 
was the eldest child of the notable Rev. Dr. Balch 
of Georgetown, a graduate of Princeton, who was 
even a notable figure in the days before Georgetown 
had been taken from Maryland in 1790 by the 
creation of the District of Colimibia. The young 
lady in question, even though the daughter of a 
clergyman, was fond of society and dancing, and 
in after life, when she had married Major- General 
Alexander Macomb, the victor on September nth, 
1 8 14, of the battle of Plattsburg, and subsequently 

^ Life, Journals and Correspodence of Rev. Manasseh Cutler, LL.D. ^ 
by his grandchildren William Parker Cutler and Julia Perkins Cutler, 
Cincinnati, 1888, Volume II., page 132. 



THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. 17 

the commander-in-chief of the army of the United 
States, she was, at their house at the northwest 
comer of Farragut Square and I Street, one of 
the leading hostesses of Washington until her death 
in 1869. 

Assemblies were given also in the city of New 
York. An invitation card to a New York Assembly, 
dated January 29th, 1841, addressed to the father 
and mother of Mrs. Gouverneur, gives the names of 
the managers, twelve in all: 

"Abm. Schermerhom, J. Swift Livingston, 

Edmd. Pendleton Jacob R. Le Roy, 

James W. Otis, Thos. W. Ludlow, 

Wm. Douglas, Chas. McEvers, Jr., 

Henry Delafield, William S. Miller, 

Henry W. Hicks, Charles C. King." 

n. 

Like most things which have started from small 
beginnings and, after the passage of some time, have 
grown to great proportions, the Philadelphia As- 
semblies were much smaller and less sumptuous at 
first than they are to-day: but there is every reason 
to think that they were just as pleasant and enjoy- 
able then as now. 



18 THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. 

During the winter season of 1748-49, nine Assem- 
blies were given in Philadelphia under the manage- 
ment of four " Directors," as the managing board was 
then called: John Swift, John IngHs, John Wallace 
and Lynford Lardner. Three manuscript relics of 
those gay and time honored festivities have come 
down to us : — the rules to govern the dances, the list of 
original subscribers and the treasurer's account book. 

All three of these manuscripts, except the signa- 
tures of the signers, are in the handwriting of John 
Swift, then a young man of twenty-eight. There 
is a tradition in the Swift family that the first 
meeting at which the Assemblies originated was 
held some time in 1748 at John Swift's house. 

The first of these three early manuscripts, Charles 
Swift Riche Hildeburn, a noted antiquary and a 
descendant of John Swift the treasurer and man- 
ager of 1748-49, presented in 1879 to the Histori- 
cal Society of Pennsylvania, an institution that was 
established in 1824. 

At the same time that Mr. Hildeburn presented 
the original set of rules governing the Assemblies, 
Richard Penn Lardner, a descendant of the first 
Lynford Lardner, who was a manager the first 
season the AssembUes were given, gave to the 
Historical Society the Hst of original subscribers. 



THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. 19 

Concerning the presentation of these two precious 
manuscripts to the Historical Society of Penn- 
sylvania, the following letter now in the possession 
.of the author, which was addressed almost forty 
years ago by the then President of that learned 
society to a gentleman who not only had been a 
manager of the Assemblies himself, but also in addi- 
tion, like the writer of the letter, had a hereditary 
interest in those balls from their inception, is of 
such interest that it is given here in full. 

"728 Spruce St., Feb. 26, 1878. 
"My Dear Mr. Swift: 

"Many years ago you were good enough to give 
to me a copy made, I believe, at your cost, in litho- 
graph of the subscribers to the ist City Dancing 
Assembly of this city, A. D. 1748. The original, 
as I think I understood at the time, was in the 
possession of Mr. Richard Penn Lardner. I had 
the fac-simile which you gave me — or one of 
them, rather, for you gave me more than one 
— ^handsomely framed, and hung up in the Hall 
of our Society. Mr. Lardner's ancestor was 
one of the managers of the Assembly; as was 
John Swift, who I believe was your great-great- 
imcle. 



20 THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. 

"Now singularly enough, a few days ago, in the 
possession of a descendant of the said John Swift, 
turns up the original rules and regulations of this 
Assembly — made like the list of Subscribers in 1748. 
They are rather amusing in this day. The assem- 
blies must begin at 6, and by no means last longer 
than 12. Card tables, lights and a card room are 
to be provided for those who wish to play at cards. 
The regulations about tickets, partners, minuets, 
etc. etc. are minute and strict. A part of the 
paper which contained certain prohibitions is un- 
fortunately destroyed; but a great part of the 
Rules & Regulations are yet legible. 

"The possessor of the document brought it to our 
Society's Hall; and I urged him strongly to give it 
to us. He is willing to do so provided Mr. Lardner 
will give us the counterpart, of the Subscribers. If 
it had both the Society would have them framed 
and hung as companion pieces. Our Society is, by 
degrees, getting to be a State Institution. Under 
the care of men like Mr. Jordan — and its present 
librarian, Mr. Frederick Stone, — it is making great 
and sure progress. Things sent there are sure to 
be preserved and displayed to the best advantage. 

"I write all this that if you think it worth while 
to bring the matter before Mr. Lardner, — with 



THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. 21 

whom I suppose that your relations are ancient and 
intimate — ^you may do so; & I'wd be obliged by yr 
doing so. 

"I may add that I have given or am giving most 
things of the same sort as I invite Mr. Lardner to 
give — of my own — to the Society as the best and 
surest place to preserve them. I may add also 
that if Mr. Lardner does not care to part with the 
property in the paper, he can deposit it in the 
Society's fire-proof vaults; and can re-demand it 
when he likes. 

"I remain 

"Dear Sir, 

"With sincere respect and regard 
Your friend & Kinsman 

JOHN W"^. WALLACE 

"Joseph Swift, Esq., 
"Philada. 
"Walnut St." 

In 1902 Mr. Edwin Swift Balch and Mr. Thomas 
Willing Balch, descendants of Charles Willing and 
Samuel McCall, Junior, both among the original 
subscribers to the balls in 1748-49, presented to the 
American Philosophical Society, the oldest learned 



22 THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. 

society in the new world, the third manuscript 
relating to the first Dancing Assembly, the account 
book kept by their great-great-granduncle, John 
Swift, the treasurer and a manager. Thus these 
three manuscript relics of colonial Philadelphia are 
now housed in the buildings of two of the most 
notable learned societies of the country, where they 
are reasonably secure against the ravages of time 
or injury by heedless hands. By looking over these 
three manuscripts and comparing them together, 
much light is thrown upon the early Philadelphia 

Assemblies. 

III. 

The subscription list begins in the handwriting 
of John Swift by saying: 

"A List of Subscribers for an Assembly under 
the direction of John Inglis, Linford Lardner, John 
Wallace & John Swift: each Subscription forty 
shillings, to be paid to any of the Directors at Sub- 
scribing. " 

Then follows the list of subscribers, only fifty- 
nine all told: 
"Alex." Hamilton, Thomas White, 

Tho. Lawrence, Jr., John Lawrence, 

John Wallace, Thos. Graems, 

Phineas Bond, John Cottenham, 



THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. 



23 



Ch^ Willing, 
Joseph Shippen, 
Sam. McCall, Jun'., 
George McCall, 
Edw. Jones, 
Samuel McCall, Sen^ 
Redm. Conyngham, 
Jos. Sims, 

Thomas Lawrence, Sen'" 
David Mcllvaine, 
John Wilcocks, 
Charles Stedman, 
John Kidd, 
W"" Bingham, 
Buckridge Sims, 
John Swift, 
John Kearsley, jun^, 
W^ Plumstead, 
Andrew Elliot, 
James Burd, 
W"" Peters, 
James Polyceen, 
Wm. Franklen, 
Hen Harrison, 
John Heuston, 
Daniel Boiles 



John Moland, 
Wm. Cussens, 
James Hamilton, 
Ro. Mackinen, 
Wm. Allen, 
Arch'^ McCall, 
Jos. Turner, 
Thos. Hopkinson, 
Rich'^ Peters, 
Adam Thompson, 
Alex"" Stedman, 
Patrick Baird, 
John Sober, 
David Franks, 
John Inglis, 
Ninian Wischeart, 
Abram Taylor, 
James Trotter, 
Samson Levy, 
Lynford Lardner, 
Rich'^ Hill, Jr., 
Benj. Frill, 
Jn°. Francis, 
WilHam M' Ilvaine, 
Will"'. Himiphreys." 



24 THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. 

In looking at the above list, any one conversant 
with the members of the Assemblies now, is im- 
pressed with the fact that most of those old names 
have passed away. Thus of the above family 
names only those of Willing, McCall, Peters, White, 
Lardner and Hopkinson seem to be still represented 
on the Assemblies by male descendants bearing the 
original names. Of course many of those original 
subscribers are still represented on the Assembly list 
to-day by descendants through female lines. That 
is true, for instance, of three of the managers for the 
season of 1748-49. A comparison of the first 
Assembly list with that of to-day is a forceful 
reminder of that rule of nature which Sir Henry 
Sumner Maine stated so clearly, that families of 
great prominence tend, after a few generations, 
to become extinct in the male lines, and to repro- 
dtice themselves only through the female lines. 

Of the four managers of the first Assemblies, 
two were of English and two of Scottish descent. 

John Swift, the treasurer, was the eldest child of 
John Swift of a family that came from Bristol, 
England, and his wife, Mary White. John Swift, the 
treasurer, who was bom in 1720, about 1740 
organized some dancing parties, "assemblies" as 
they were then called, at his own house and those 



THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. 25 

of some of his young friends. In 1743 he went 
over to England together with his younger brother, 
Joseph Swift, where they visited their uncle John 
White at Croydon, in Surrey. Returning to Phila- 
delphia in 1746, he became a successful merchant. 
In 1757 he was elected to the Common Council of 
the city. He was appointed by the Crown, Col- 
lector of the Port of Philadelphia from 1762 to 
1772, and was afterwards known as the "Old 
Collector." During the latter part of his life, he 
lived at "Croyden Lodge," in Bucks County, 
where he died in 1802, and was buried in Christ 
Church burying ground, Philadelphia, January 14, 
1803.^' 

John Inglis, a Scotchman, settled in Philadelphia, 
and married on October i6th, 1736, Catherine 
McCall, of a prominent Philadelphia family. He 
engaged in business, with his wife's brother-in-law 
and cousin, Samuel McCall, Senior, who was a 
subscriber to the First Philadelphia Assemblies. Mr. 
Inglis was elected to the City Common Council in 



^° Thomas Balch: Letters and Papers relating chiefly to the Provincial 
History of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, 1855, page LXXXIII et seq. 
This work is often spoken of as The Shippen Papers.— ThomsiS Willing 
Balch: The Swift Family of Philadelphia: The Pennsylvania Magazine 
of History and Biography, Philadelphia, 1906, page 130 et seq. 



26 THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. 

October, 1745, in which he served many years. He 
was commissioned a Captain of a company of the 
Associated Regiment of Foot of Philadelphia. He 
signed the Non-Importation Resolutions of 1765. 
His portrait was painted by Peale about 1770.^^ 

John Wallace, also a director or manager of the 
First Assemblies, came from Drtimellier, Scotland, 
to Newport, Rhode Island in 1742; a few years 
afterwards he settled in Philadelphia and became a 
prosperous merchant. He was a founder of the Saint 
Andrew's Society of this city and served in the City 
Councils from 1755 to 1776.^^ His portrait was 
painted by a Swede, Hesselius. 

Lynford Lardner, the other manager of the first 
Assemblies, was born in London, July i8th, 17 15, 
sailed from Gravesend, May 5th, 1740, and arrived 
early in the following September and settled in 
Philadelphia. In 1746 he was made Keeper of the 
Great Seal of the Province, in 1752 Justice of the 
Peace for Lancaster and in 1755 he was appointed 
to the Provincial Council. He was a member of the 

^^ Gregory B, Keen: The Descendants of J or an Kyn, the founder of 
Uplands: The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, 
1 88 1, Volume V., page 335. 

^^ Henry Flanders: Commemorative Address, The Pennsylvania Maga- 
zine of History and Biography, 1884, Vol;mie VIII., pages xiii-xiv. 



THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. 27 

Library Company of Philadelphia, and was elected 
to the American Philosophical Society, January 
26th, 1768/^ He died October 6th, 1774, ^^ 
"Somerset," at Tacony on the Delaware River. 
John Swift and Lynford Lardner were very 
intimate and the following letter of introduction 
given by the former to the latter to Grosvenor 
Bedford in London when Lardner was about to 
revisit his native land, may not be without interest 
for the relatives of both managers. 

"To 

"Grosvenor Bedford Esqr 

"att the General Excise Office 
"London 

Philadelphia June 29th 1762 
"Dear Sir 

"This will be handed you by my very good Friend 
Mr. Linford Lardner, who is going to pay a short 
Visit to his Friends and native Country after an 
absence of about twenty years. He is a gentleman 
I have been long intimately acquainted with, and 
have a great regard for; consequently he must 
often have heard of you, which makes him desirous 

^' List of the members of the American Philosophical Society, Phila- 
delphia, January 17, 1890, page 5. 



28 THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. 

of being acquainted with you. Any Civilities you 
show him will be thankfully acknowledged by 
"Your Affectionate 

"Hum Servt 

"JOHN SWIFT" 

Of the subscribers to the first Philadelphia Assem- 
blies, the most influential man in the community 
was undoubtedly Charles Willing, who in that year 
of 1 748 was Mayor of the City. Sprung from a family 
originally from County Somerset, England, that was 
established as successful merchants for two genera- 
tions at Bristol in Gloucestershire, Charles Willing, 
about the year 1729 came over to Philadelphia to 
join his uncle Thomas Willing who had settled here 
a ntimber of years earlier. After some years the 
latter returned to Bristol, leaving his nephew in 
sole charge of the business in America. Charles 
Willing married Ann Shippen, a granddaughter of 
Edward Shippen, the emigrant. In 1748 he was 
elected by the non-Quaker element Mayor of the 
City and again in 1754, in which later year he died 
of yellow fever. A copy of his portrait is in the 
Mayor's room in the City Hall. Of him the Rev. Dr. 
William Smith, the first Provost of the University 
of Pennsylvania wrote : 



THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. 29 

"If to be all the wise and good commend, 
The tender husband, father and the friend; 
At home belov'd and blest, esteem'd abroad; 
Studious to serve mankind, and please his God ; 
If this from death one useful life could save, 
Thou hadst not read that Willing fills this grave! " 

On the list of the First AssembHes, the Shippen 
family was represented by Joseph Shippen. Prob- 
ably he was that Joseph who was born at Philadel- 
phia, November 26, 1706, and died in June, 1793. 
He married Mary Kearney. In October, 1742, he 
was elected to the City Council, in which he served 
some years. He was known in the Shippen family 
by the name of "Gentleman Joe," by reason of the 
gay, luxurious life which he led, and which, as ap- 
pears from the letters of his brother, Edward Shippen 
"of Lancaster," wasted his patrimony. He sub- 
sequently removed to Germantown, where he died. 

As the Shippens played an important part in 
shaping the colonial history of Pennsylvania, and 
the blood of Edward Shippen, the immigrant, runs 
in the veins of so many prominent Philadelphia 
families, it will not be without interest to say some- 
thing about the Shippens, both in England and 
colonial Pennsylvania. 



30 THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. 

The Shippens were settled in Yorkshire at least 
as early as the middle of the thirteenth century, 
where they were a prosperous yeoman family. 
In the register of Monk Fryston in the County of 
York, the christening of Tenet Shippen is recorded 
on September 22nd, 1539, and on September 15th, 
1540, the burial of Robert Shippen is noted. In 
subsequent years some forty Shippen entries are 
recorded in the Monk Fryston Register. On July 
1 8th, 1626, the marriage of William Shippen and 
Mary Nunes or Nunns is recorded in the neighboring 
parish of Methley. It is possible that this William 
Shippen came to Methley from Hillom which is in 
the parish of Monk Fryston, to which confirmation 
is given by the fact that a William Shippen was 
living at Hillom in 1612.-^* William Shippen 's wife, 
Mary Nunes, was a member of a substantial yeoman 
family long established at Methley. 

^* Francis Laburne of Methley, yeoman, in his will dated August 
13th, 161 2, says inter alia, "Also whereas Thomas Quare of Methley, 
is indebted and doth owe tmto me the sxmi of xjli. due to be paid 
upon Martin the bushopp in winter next following, I do give and 
bequeath it unto Willm Shippone of Hillom, in the prsh of Munk- 
frieston." The Registers of the Parish Church of Methley in the County 
of York from 1560 to 18 12. Transcribed and edited by George 
Denison Ltimb one of the Hon. Secretaries of the Thoresby Society 
and the Yorkshire Parish Register Society: Leeds, 1903. 



THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. 31 

' William and Mary Shippen had six children, 
four daughters and two sons. The latter, who were 
the youngest members of the family, were baptized 
respectively July 2nd, 1637 and March 5th, 1639, 
William and Edward. Of these two brothers, the 
elder remained in England and the younger came to 
America. Of William's children, his second son, 
also a William Shippen, was a member of Parliament 
and a famous leader of the Jacobites. In his 
speeches he spoke his mind clearly and fearlessly, 
and to such purpose that on one occasion for reflect- 
ing on the policy of the King, he was confined to 
the Tower of London; and it was of him that Pope 
wrote, 

"I love to pour out all myself, as plain 
As downright Shippen, or as old Montaigne. ' ' 

Edward Shippen, the emigrant from Methley, 
came over to New England in 1668 not to escape 
political or religious persecutions but to better his 
fortune. He soon amassed a considerable fortune in 
Boston. But owing to his having become a Quaker, 
he found it advisable to move to Providence, that 
haven of liberty founded by Roger Williams. From 
there in a few years Shippen moved on to the city 
founded by Penn on the right bank of the Delaware 



32 THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. 

River. In his new home he soon rose to high posi- 
tion in both City and State, and began those oft 
repeated services rendered by the Shippen family 
for several generations to the State through all 
of the colonial period and even into the days of the 
Republic. Like the Brooke family of Maryland, 
the Van Rensselaer and the Livingston families of 
New York, and the Lee family of Virginia in the 
colonial period, and the Adams family of Massachu- 
setts at a later period, the Shippens of Pennsylvania 
showed the true basis upon which all aristocracies 
have been founded, to wit, long and continued 
services rendered through several generations to 
the State. In 1695 Edward Shippen became speaker 
of the Provincial Assembly, in 1699 he was chosen 
Chief Justice of the Province, ^^ and in 1701 Penn 
named him the mayor of the city in the charter 
that the Proprietor gave to the city of Philadelphia. 
To quote from Thomas Balch's Shippen Papers-}^ 
"Penn, as is well known, gave the most anxious 
consideration to his selection of officers to govern 
the new city. He thoroughly appreciated the im- 

^^ Pennsylvania Archives, Second Series, edited by John B. Linn 
and Wm. H. Egle, Harrisburg, 1880, Volume IX., page 629. 

^^ Thomas Batch: Letters and Papers, etc., Philadelphia, 1855, pages 
xvii-xviii. 



THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. 33 

portance of a correct choice. It was, to borrow a 
military phrase, the base-line of his operations. 
The success of his whole enterprise turned upon 
it: * * * In Shippen he found a man of courage, 
energy, integrity, intelligence and sagacity; whose 
unspotted moral character was ample earnest to 
the citizens that the executive power would be 
exercised with the strictest justice and fidelity; 
whose active business habits and bravery equally 
assured them of the chief magistrate's resolution 
and promptness; whilst his high social position 
gave dignity to the office. * * * No one could 
wish to detract in the slightest degree from Penn's 
merits ; but we are taught to render ' honor to whom, 
honor is due. ' In doing so, we must need say that 
a great portion of the glory of building up the 
Commonwealth which was 'founded by deeds of 
peace' is due to Shippen, Norris and Logan, and 
men like them; the men who here, in the new 
country itself, fostered commerce, developed the 
resources of the Province, set the best of examples 
by disdaining no proper toil in their respective voca- 
tions, yet neglected not the refinement and graces 
of letters and polite society. " 

The McCall family was represented more largely 
on the First Assembly list than any other, four of 



34 THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. 

its members signing their names to that now notable 
social paper. 

One of these was Samuel McCall, Junior, who 
was born October 5th, 1721, and died in 1762. He 
was a merchant, and served for a time in the City 
Councils, to which he was elected October 6, 1747. 
He married Ann Searle. Of their children, Ann 
McCall married Thomas Willing in 1763. 

Then there was Samuel McCall, Senior, who 
was a cousin of Samuel McCall, Junior. He was 
bom in Scotland in 17 10. In 1747-8 he became 
Major of the Associated Regiment for the defense 
of Philadelphia. 

George McCall was another subscriber to the 
first Assemblies. He was born April 16, 1724 and 
died in 1758. 

The fourth McCall to subscribe to the Assemblies 
of 1748-49 was Archibald McCall, who was born 
June 28, 1727 and died in 1799. He lived at the 
corner of Union and Second Streets. He was the 
leading East India merchant of his day. He married 
in 1762 Judith Kemble, of Mount Kemble, New 
Jersey. Of their children Mary McCall married 
Lambert Cadwalader, Colonel in the American 
Army during the Revolution, and Archibald McCall 
was the father of General McCall of the United States 



THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. 35 

Army, and grandfather of Peter McCall, Mayor of 
Philadelphia, a leader of the Philadelphia Bar, and 
a manager of the Assemblies in 185 1. 

Thomas White came from England to Maryland 
in the first decade of the eighteenth century, became 
a lawyer in Maryland, and was a colonel of militia. 
In 1745 he moved to Philadelphia and resided on 
Walnut Street near Third Street. 

William Plumstead, son of Clement Plumstead, 
well known in the early annals of the Province, was 
repeatedly elected mayor of the city in 1750 and 
afterwards; he married Mary McCall, daughter of 
George McCall. She was born March 31st, 1725, 
and was in her twenty-fourth year when she attended 
the first Assemblies. 

Andrew Elliot, a son of Lord Minto of Scotland, 
came over to Pennsylvania in 1746 with John Swift, 
and they lived together for the next two years. 
Andrew Elliot married Eleanor McCall, born in 
1732, daughter of George McCall and his wife, Ann 
Yeates, daughter of the first Jasper Yeates. Andrew 
Elliot was afterwards Lieutenant Governor of New 
York. Their only child, Eleanor Elliot,^'' married 
first in 1774 James Jancey, Jr. of New York, and 

^^ Her portrait by Benjamin West is now in the possession of Mrs. 
Thomas Balch. 



36 THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. 

secondly, Admiral Digby of the English navy. 
While Andrew Elliot was on a visit to London, his 
intimate friend, John Swift in a letter to Grosvenor 
Bedford, dated October 25th, 1749, said: "If you 
frequent the Pennsylvania Coffee House, you will 
probably meet with a tall, thin Scots gentleman, 
with a pimply face. He answers to the name of 
Elliot, and is an intimate friend of mine, one for 
whom I have a particular regard, on account of 
several valuable qualities I have discovered in him, 
we have lived in the same house for nearly two 
years. "^^ Mr. Elliot was elected to the City Councils 
October 7th, 1755, and served in that body for several 
years. 

Among the subscribers to the first Assemblies were 
two Jews. One of them, David Franks, was the son 
of David Franks, who emigrated to New York as 
early as, or before 171 1, and a grandson of Aaron 
Franks of Germany, who was described as "the com- 
panion and friend of King George of Hanover, and 
as having loaned him the most valuable jewels in 
his crown at his coronation." Of David Franks, 
Rosenbach says : " David Franks was quite a promi- 
nent citizen of Philadelphia, both socially and in busi- 

^^ Thomas Balch's Letters and Papers, etc., page xciii, foot-note. 



THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. 37 

ness. He was a member of the Mount Regale 
Fishing Company, which met at Peter Robinson's 
tavern, at the Falls of Schuylkill, where fisheries 
were in full operation." 

The other Jewish subscriber was Samson Levy, 
who was a signer of the Non-Importation Resolu- 
tions of 1765. 

John Francis was probably the John Francis 
who was bom in 1725, and died unmarried. He was 
a son of Tench Francis, Attorney General of the 
Province from 1744 to 1752, who was a first cousin 
of Sir Phillip Francis, now generally believed to have 
written the Letters of Junius}^ 

James Burd who signed the first Assembly list 
was doubtless Colonel James Burd of the Revolution. 
He married Sarah, daughter of Edward Shippen, 
Mayor of Philadelphia in 1744 (whose portrait hangs 
in the Mayor's room in the City Hall), but who upon 
his removal in 1752 to Lancaster came to be known 
as "Edward Shippen of Lancaster." Colonel Burd 
and his wife eventually settled on the colonel's 
estate of Tinian, near Harrisburg. 

Redmond Conyngham was born at Letterkenny, 
Ireland, in 17 19 of a family that came originally from 

^^ Thomas Balch's Letters and Papers, etc., pages xliii-xliv. 



38 THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. 

Scotland.^" He crossed the Atlantic in 1740, and 
settled in Philadelphia, where he became a merchant, 
and was one of the signers of the Non-Importation 
Agreement of October 25, 1765. He was a vestry- 
man of Christ Church, 1 754-1 766, and a warden, 
1 754-1 759. In 1 761, as a vestryman, he took part 
in the opening of St. Peter's Church at Third and 
Pine Streets. In a list published by Watson, 
Conyngham's name appears as a manager of the 
Dancing Assembly for the season of 1749-50. 

William Bingham, senior, a self made man, married 
Mary Stamper, a daughter of Mayor John Stamper. 
His chief claim to fame is that he was the father of 
his far more celebrated son of the same name. 

William Allen, was bom in Philadelphia, August 
5th, 1704, and baptized at the First Presbyterian 
Church, August 7th. He went to London to study 
law in the Temple. After his return to Philadelphia, 
he filled many important positions. In 1735, he 
was chosen mayor of the city; and in 1750 he was 
appointed Chief Justice of the Province. Mr. 
Keith, writing in 1883, says^^ that he was "the 

^° Proceedings and Collections of the Wyoming Historical and Geologi- 
cal Society, Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, 1904, Volume VIIL, page 
187 e^ seq. 

^^ Charles Penrose Keith: The Provincial Councillors of Pennsyl- 
vania, Philadelphia, 1883, page 142. 



THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. 39 

only Chief Justice before the Revolution who was 
a native of Pennsylvania, and the only one before 
or since excepting Shippen or Sharswood who has 
been a native of Pennsylvania." William Allen 
was elected to membership in the American Philo- 
sophical Society, January 19th, 1768. 

Joseph Turner was mayor of Philadelphia in 1745. 

James Hamilton was mayor of the city in 1746. 

Thomas Lawrence Jr. was mayor of the city in 
1749 and 1758-59- 

Abram Taylor refused the mayoralty in 1745. 

IV. 

An examination of the early Assembly rules shows 
that the colonial dances of the middle of the eigh- 
teenth century from which the present large and 
handsome balls descend, were very different from the 
present day Assembly balls. 

The rules, which are in the collections of the 
Historical Society of Pennsylvania, provided, in 
quaint language, strict regulations as to the manner 
of conducting the dances. 

"Rules to be [Observed at the Phi]ladelphia 

Assembly. 
"i. The Assembly to be held every Thursday 
Night from the first Jan'y 1748/9 to the first Day 



40 THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. 

of May in every Year, and begin precisely at six 
in the Evening, and not by any Means to exceed 
twelve, the same Night. 

"2d. The Subscribers, consisting of Gentlemen to 
chuse by a Majority four of their Number to act as 
Directors under whose Management the whole 
Assembly is to be during the Season. 

"3d. The Directors are to furnish the Ladies 
with Tickets for the Season, which must admit only 
the Lady whose Name is first wrote on the Ticket 
by one of the Directors. 

"4th. On Application made to the Directors by 
any Subscriber, for the Admission of any Stranger, 
A Ticket is to be given out for every such Stranger 
particularly the Subscriber who shall apply for such 
Ticket, paying imediately on the Delivery of it for 
a strange Gentleman Seven Shillings and six Pence, 
for a Lady nothing. 

"5th. None are to be admitted without Tickets 
which are to be received at the Door, by one of 
the Directors every Assembly Night, and returned 
again except the Strangers Tickets, before the Com- 
pany are dismissed. 

"6th. The Directors are to order every Thing 
necessary for the Entertainment of the Company 
as well as those who incline to dance, as those 



THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. 41 

who are disposed to play cards; for the Accom- 
modation of the Latter Rooms are to be 
provided and furnished with Fire, Candles, Tables, 
Chairs, Cards, etc. All which with 
the Subscribers. 

to be allowed No 

Night, nor as I " 

Next follow directions for the management of 
the dances at the balls. 

"To Regulate the Dances. 

"[i. Each set] to consist of ten Couples. Such 
Ladies as come first to form the first Set, after 
which other Sets are to be composed, that is in the 
order wherein they come to the Assembly. 

"2. Every Set of Ladies to draw for their Places 
only the first Ticket of each Set is to be reserved 
by the Directors to present to a Stranger if any, 
or any other Lady who is thereby entitled to lead 
up that set for the night. 

"3. The Director who has the composing of the 
Sets is whilst the Minuets are dancing, to couple 
those disposed for Coimtry Dances and provide 
Partners for such Gentlemen Strangers who come in 
unprovided. 



42 THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. 

"4th. If there should be any odd Couples above 
a Set but not exceeding four Couples, they are to be 
distributed by the Directors among the compleat 
Sets, if above four Couples they are to be composed 
into a Set by taking some out of the other Sets. " 

V. 

According to these early Rules of the Assemblies, 
an Assembly was to be held every two weeks during 
the first four months of the year; but as a matter 
of fact John Swift's account book shows that nine 
Assemblies were held during the winter of 1748-49. 
It is a small, thin book, and Mr. Swift used it 
originally for some of his own accounts, and for 
some land transactions for his yotmger brother 
Joseph. On one cover he wrote: "Account book 
1746." When the Assemblies were instituted and 
his fellow-managers chose him the Treasurer, he 
turned to the other end of this little book and there 
kept the "Assembly Account." Owing to age 
and neglect the Account Book is very much worn 
and somewhat injured. Of the names of the fifty- 
nine subscribers written down by John Swift in his 
book, only fifty-three have been preserved, the 
remaining six having been destroyed by mutilation 
of the manuscript by Father Time. But the book 



THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES, 



43 










Extract from John Swift's Account Book. 



44 



THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. 






^kdtsctt^ 


















Extract from John Swift's Account Book. 



THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. 45 

is now in the keeping of the American Philosophical 
Society and has been treated by an expert, and every 
sheet covered with silk so as to guard it against any 
future weathering of time. 

An examination of the account book shows that 
the nine Assemblies of 1748-49 were far less costly 
than the two large balls that are now given annually 
at the Bellevue-Stratford and before that at the 
Academy of Music; or for that matter, even the 
three balls that were held each season about fifty 
years and more ago at Musical Fund Hall. In one 
respect, however, those old worthies were not behind 
the present generation, for taking all things in pro- 
portion they provided rum liberally. The record 
kept by Mr. Swift is somewhat injured, so that it 
is impossible to state exactly how much he disbursed, 
but the whole cost of the nine dances seems to 
have amounted to a little more than £130. 
As there were only fifty-nine subscribers at 
forty shillings each, which gave a total of 
£118, the Managers doubtless, as so often 
happens nowadays in all sorts of social and 
philanthropic undertakings, had to put their 
hands into their own pockets. A few extracts 
from the expenses show the modest and simple 
character of the entertainments. 



46 THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. 

£ s 
"I Stick Wax 

5 Gallons Riim & Cask 2 

I Hhd Wine 15 - 

Porterage - i 

Cash for Ditto - 6 

Scrubbing Brush 

Broom & house ClothJ 

3 Decanters i 2 



] 



2 *° Coffee 034 

Chairs 3 dozen 7 - - 

Porterage etc. - 2 - 

200 Limes - 14 - 

18 *° Milk Bisket - 9 - 

14 Bisket - 4 2 

Spice - 2 3 

Ditto - I - 



again : 



"pd. Musick I 10 - 

pd. for Snuffers _ 4 _ 

pd. Scotts boy for his attend - 7 6 

pd. Jack Error - o - 

17th 2 doz. Bottles - 12 - 

Bisket - 10 - 

I doz. Knives & Forks - 9 6 

150 Limes - 10 6 



THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. 47 



pd. Archer for attendance 


- 


7 


6 


pd. for Musick 


I 


10 


- 


Porterage of Wine 


- 


I 


— 


pd. Diana for attendance 


- 


15 


- 


And again: 








"Ap. 20 p*^ Musick 


I 


10 


- 


p*^ Diana for Attendance^ 
7 nights / 








I 


15 


•"" 


p^, for Limes 


I 


7 


6 


p*^ for Mugg Beer 





- 


4 


p*^ Archer for Attendance 





3 


9 


p*^ Capt° Wischeats Man| 
for Attendance / 








I 


7 




"p<'for2 Gallon Spirit 


- 


15 


- 


p"^ Sharper 5 nights Attend 


- 


18 


9 


p"^ Greek for Attendance 


- 


7 


6 



p*^ Mr. Inglis for rent 20 - -" 

The Managers of the first Assemblies had to pay a 
tax, both to the city and to the county, as may be 
seen by turning to Mr. Swift's Account Book; but 
as the book is there somewhat torn, it is impossible 
to know how much. 

In a letter dated at New Castle May 3d, 1749, 
and addressed to Thomas Penn, Richard Peters, 



48 THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. 

writing a propos of one of the Assembly dances 
the first season they were given, says: — 

"By the Governors encouragement there has 
been a very handsome Assembly once a fortnight 
at Andrew Hamiltons House & Stores wch are 
tenanted by Mr. Inglis — make a Set of good Rooms 
for such a purpose: It consists of Eighty Ladies & 
as many Gentlemen, one half appearing every 
Assembly night. Mr. Inglis had the Conduct of the 
whole & managed exceeding well. There happened 
a little mistake at the beginning, which at some 
other times might have produced disturbances. 
The Governor would have opened the Assembly 

with Mrs. but she refused him, I suppose 

because he had not been to visit her. After Mrs. 

refusal, two or three Ladies out of modesty & 

from no manner of ill design excused themselves 
so that the Governor was put a little to his Shifts, 
when Mrs. Willing now Mrs. Mayoress in a most 
genteel manner put herself into his way & on the 
Governor seeing this instance of her good nature 
he jimiped at the Occasion & they danced the 
first Minuet." 

From this letter of Richard Peters, as well as the 
comment of Chastellux, which will be foimd further 



THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. 49 

on, it would seem that in the eighteenth century, 
the directors or managers of the Philadelphia 
Assemblies took turns to manage the dances, that is, 
each directed an Assembly night b, tour-de-role. 

In colonial days only the gentlemen and not 
the ladies, or had we better not say, only the men 
and not the women subscribed, since those two 
pairs of words have in recent years largely changed 
places and have come to mean in large measure 
to-day exactly the reverse of what they meant in 
colonial days. And this change in the meaning of 
the words is the more true that in the best society 
in this country now, the participants almost in- 
variably refer to one another as women and men. 

At the present time, on the contrary, both men 
and women subscribe to the balls. In those early 
days too, the managers of the Assemblies were 
elected each year by the votes of all the subscribers. 
Also at the first Assemblies provision was made for 
those members who wished to play cards instead of 
dancing or only talking. 

In colonial days the invitations to the Philadelphia 
Assemblies were printed on the back of playing cards, 
because in those times it was impossible to obtain 
any others. Thus the invitation card of Mrs. 
Jeykill, Jekyll or Jekyl, a granddaughter of Edward 



50 THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES, 

Shippen, the emigrant of that name, was printed 

on the back of the ace of diamonds. The card reads : 

"Philadelphia Assembly, No. 6 

"Admit for the Season 

"Mrs. Jeykill 
"January 2^ 1748/9 
John IngHs \j^-^^^,.^. 



Lynford Lardner 



}> 



VI. 

For the second Assembly season, that of 1749-50* 
Mrs. Jeykill's invitation was likewise "No. 6." 
It was printed on the back of the four of hearts, 
and reads : 

"Philadelphia Assembly, No. 6 
"Admit for the Season 

"Mrs. Jeykill 
to begin Oct^ 5th, 1749 

"Joseph Shippen |oirect- 
James Burd ; 

Upon becoming a widow Mrs. Jeykill or Jekyll 
lived in Philadelphia on "Second Street, just below 
the Shippen or Government House, in a house still 
standing [1855]; after her death the residence of 
Thomas Fisher. "'' 

^^ Thomas Balch: Letters and Papers, etc., page XIX, foot-note. 



THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. 51 

For the second Assembly season, in 1749-50, there 
were sixty-five subscribers, six more than for the 
previous season. Thus at its inception almost, the list 
of subscribers not only changed, but as in modem 
days, new names were added to it, some by inherit- 
ance, and some as entirely new subscribers. In addi- 
tion to Joseph Shippen and James Burd mentioned 
above, the other directors or managers for the 
second Assembly season were Redm*^. Cunyngham 
and Joseph Sims. The subscription also for the 
second season was increased, something not unknown 
to present day subscribers, from forty shillings to 
three pounds. The second Assembly subscription 
list, as given by Watson is as follows: 

"The Governor paid Charles Stedman.. . .paid 

William Allen paid John Kidd paid 

Archibald McCall . . paid William Bingham . . . paid 

Joseph Turner Backridge Sims 

Richard Peters paid John Swift J. B. 

Adam Thompson paid John Kears'y* Jan'. . . 

Alexander Stedman. paid William Plumstead. .paid 

Patrick Baird paid James Burd paid 

John Sober William Franklin. . . .paid 

David Franks J. B. Henry Harrison paid 

John Inglis Daniel Bayles paid 

Abram Taylor paid Thomas White paid 



52 



THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES- 



James Trotter J. B. 

Samson Levy J. B. 

Lynf ord Lardner 

Benjamin Price paid 

John Francis paid 

William Humphry s. . paid 
Alexander Hamilton. paid 
Thomas Lawrence 

Jun paid 

John Wallace paid 

Phinias Bond 

Joseph Shippen 

Samuel McCall Jim. J. B. 

George McCall 

Edward Jones 

Samuel McCall Sen. paid 
Redm*^ Cunyngham. 

Jo. Sims paid 

Thomas Lawrence 

Sen paid 

David Mcllvaine paid 

John Wilcocks paid 



John Lawrence 

Thomas Grame 

John Moland paid 

Alexander Barclay, .paid 

James Young J. B. 

Peter Bard 

Venables 

Thomas Cross paid 

George Smith paid 

Thomas Bond paid 

Thomas Willing . . J. 

Shippen 

John Ross paid 

Hugh Dancy paid 

Daniel Roberdau . . . paid 

Joseph Marks J. B. 

Christopher Carnan . paid 

John Hisselius paid 

Robert Warren paid 

Lawrence Din(?)dy.paid 
William Mcllvaine. . 
John Nelson J. B." 



Forty-two of the above subscribers had subscribed 
the previous season; consequently the names of 
twenty-three new subscribers were on the list. Of 



THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. 53 

the latter, some were relatives of the other sub- 
scribers. Thus for example, among the subscribers 
to the second season, the name of Thomas Willing 
is found, but not that of his father, Charles Willing, 
who had subscribed the first season. 

The following notice, published as an advertise- 
ment in the Pennsylvania Gazette for September 27th, 
1750, shows that the Assemblies were given dur- 
ing the winter of 1750-51. The notice says: — 
"The Philadelphia Assembly begins Thursday eve- 
ning, the 4th of October; and this is to give notice 
that no gentlemen (not a subscriber) can be ad- 
mitted, without a ticket, first obtained from the 
directors, by the application of a subscriber, before 
the time of meeting. " 

Likewise the dances were given the next season, 
that of 1751-52, as the following notice, which gives 
us the names of two of the Directors, shows.^^ 

"Philadelphia, October i, 1751. 
"The Philadelphia assembly opens on Thursday, 
the 3d inst. at 6 a clock in the evening, and notice 
is hereby given, that no resident, who has not 
subscrib'd, can be admitted, nor any person for the 
night without a ticket, which may be had on the 



23 



Pennsylvania Gazette, no. 1190. October 3, 1751. 



54 THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. 

application of a subscriber to the directors, before 
the time of meeting. RICHARD HILL, junior, 
ANDREW ELLIOT, Directors." 

A curious anecdote a propos of the Assemblies 
during the winter of 1755, is related in this "extract 
of a letter from Trent Town," New Jersey, dated 
April 1 8th, 1755:"^ 

" The antient King of the Mohawks, (the same who 
was in England in Queen Anne's Time) came down 
with some of his Warriors this Winter to Philadel- 
phia, and assured them of his friendship, though 
he own'd many of the young Mohawks were gone 
over to the Enemy; they were entertain'd at the 
Stadthouse, and made their Appearance also among 
the Ladies on the Assembly Night, where they 
danced the Scalping Dance with all its Horrors, and 
almost terrified the Company out of their Wits. 
I must tell you they brought with them a beautiful 
young Lady, who in publick made the Indian 
Compliment, a Tender of her Person to the Governor ; 
as gallant a Man as he is, he was quite confounded 
at the Time. I know not if he accepted her." 



2* Documents relating to the Colonial History of New Jersey, Volume 
XIX, Paterson, New Jersey, 1897, page 488. This item was com- 
mtinicated by the Boston antiquary, Albert Matthews, Esqr. 



THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. 55 

An invitation card for the year 1755 is here 
reproduced. It was addressed for that season to 
Mrs. Jekyll, wife of John Jekyll, younger brother of 
Sir Joseph Jekyll, Master of the Rolls and Secretary 
of State to Queen Anne. Mrs. Jekyll was Margaret 
Shippen, a granddaughter of the first Edward 
Shippen, whom Penn in the city charter of 1701 
named Mayor of Philadelphia. Watson says that 
she was "the then leading lady of the town" and 
that "she dwelt in and owned the house next 
southward of 'Edward Shippen's house' in south 
Second Street, where is now Nicholas Wain's 
row." This card belonged many years since to 
Winthrop Sargent of Philadelphia, from whom it 
passed to his sister, Mrs. Butler Duncan of New 
York. The present reproduction of this card 
was made from a photographic copy in the col- 
lections of the University of Pennsylvania taken 
from the original. 

" Philadelphia Assembly 

for the year 1755 

"Admit for the Season Mrs. Jekyl 



}> 



J. Trotter 
"No. 99 



56 



THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. 



< PhUadelphia ASSEMBLY, 
]§ for the Year 1755. 




Reprint of an Assembly card for the year 1755. 



THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. 57 

Another invitation card of the latter part of 
the year 1755, also addressed to Mrs. Jekyll, is 
extant. It reads: 

"The Gentlemen of the Army present their 

compliments to Mrs. Jekyll and beg the favour of 

her company to a Ball at the State House on Monday 

next. 

"Saturday Sept. 20, I755-" 

It must not too readily be inferred because the 
officers of the army of the King gave a ball in the 
State House, now popularly known as Independence 
Hall, that the Assemblies were also held in that 
building of precious memory to all the Nation for 
events of a later date, and also of reverent memory 
to Pennsylvania because it was the State House for 
the last forty years of the Provincial Government. 

The following short notice of the Assemblies for 
the winter of 1755-56 was printed for the benefit of 
the subscribers:^^ 

"NOTICE is hereby given, that the PHILA- 
DELPHIA SUBSCRIPTION ASSEMBLY com- 
mences on Thursday, the Ninth of this instant 
October." 



25 



Pennsylvania Gazette, no. 1397. October 2, 1755. 



58 



THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. 



VII. 

Watson gives the following "List of Belles and 
Dames of Philadelphia fashionables, of about the 
year 1757. An original list for the ball of the City 
Assembly." 



"Mrs. Allen, 

Mrs. Taylor, 

Mrs. Hamilton, 

Mrs. Brotherson, 

Mrs. Inglis, 

Mrs. Jeykell, 

Mrs. Franks, 

Mrs. Lydia M'Call, 

Mrs. Saml. M'Call, senr. 

Mrs. Saml. M'Call, junr. 

Mrs. Swift, 

Mrs. Sims, 

Mrs. Willcocks, 

Mrs. Lawrence, senr. 

Mrs. Lawrence, jtinr. 

Mrs. Robertson, 

Mrs. Francis, 

Mrs. Graeme, 

Mrs. Joseph Shippen, 

Mrs. Dolgreen, 

Mrs. Phins. Bond, 



Miss Isabella Cairnie, 

Miss Pennyfaither, 

Miss Jeany Richardson, 

Mrs. Reily, 

Mrs. Grydon, 

Mrs. Ross, 

Mrs. Peter Bard, 

Mrs. Franklin, 

Miss Lucy De Normondie, 

Miss Phebe Winecoop, 

Mrs. Harkly, 

Mrs. Clymer, 

Mrs. Wallace, 

Mrs. ElUs, 

Mrs. Alexr. Steadman, 

Mrs. Hopkinson, 

Mrs. Hockley, 

Mrs. Marks, 

Miss Molly Francis, 

Miss Betty Francis, 

Miss Osbom, 



THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. 



59 



Mrs. Burd, 

Mrs. Chars. Steadman, 

Mrs. Thos. White, 

Mrs. Jones, 

Mrs. Warren, 

Mrs. Oswald, 

Mrs. Thos. Bond, 

Mrs. Davey, 



Miss Sober, 
Miss Molly Lawrence, 
Miss Kitty Lawrence, 
Mrs. George Smith, 
Miss Nancy Hickman, 
Miss Sally Hunlock, 
Miss Peggy Harding, 
Miss Molly M'Call, 



Mrs. Wilhn. Htimphreys, Miss Peggy M'Call, 



Mrs. Pennery, 
Mrs. Henry Harrison, 
Mrs. Bingham, 
Miss Peggy Oswald, 
Miss Betty Oswald, 
Miss Sally Woodrop, 
Miss Molly Oswald, 
Mrs. Willing, 
Miss Nancy Willing, 
Miss Dolly Willing, 
Mrs. M'llvaine, 
Miss Betty Gryden, 
Miss Sally Fishbourn, 
Miss Fumell, 



Mrs. Lardner, 
Miss Patty Ellis, 
Miss Betty Plumstead, 
Miss Rebecca Davis, 
Miss Jeany Greame, 
Miss Nelly M'Call, 
Miss Randolph, 
Miss Sophia White, 
Mrs. Venables, 
Miss Hyatt, 
Miss Betty Clifften, 
Miss Molly Dick, 
Miss Fanny Jeykell, 



Miss Fanny Marks." 

In the Pefinsylvania Gazette of January 12th, 1758, 
there is a slight mention of the Assemblies, 
which would seem to show that they were 



60 THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. 

given during the winter of 1757-58. The item is 
as follows: 

"Notice is hereby given to all gentlemen and 
others, that John Beals from London, at the Sign 
of the Nets in Fourth Street * * * makes and 
mends all sorts of nets. * * * jje also plays 
on the violin at the Assembly Balls and all other 
entertainments. * * *" 

In the same paper of October 12th, 1758, occurs 
the following advertisement, showing the balls were 
given in 1758-59: "No strangers will be ad- 
mitted to the Philadelphia Assembly during this 
Season, but by Tickets from the Directors." 

From a letter of Colonel Joseph Shippen written 
from Philadelphia May 23rd, 1759, to his brother- 
in-law. Colonel James Burd at Lancaster, we learn 
that at the time he wrote there existed in Philadel- 
phia an "Assembly Room." He says:^^ 

"Yesterday the General gave a public breakfast 
at the Assembly Room; there were forty- two 
ladies there, and many more gentlemen; all danced 
after breakfast till near 2 o'clock, and then formed 
parties with the ladies to Schuylkill and Springetts- 
berry. " 

^^ Thomas Balch: Letters and Papers, etc., Philadelphia, 1855, 
page 158. 



THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. 61 

Writing from Lancaster on February 28, 1760, 
to Miss Nancy Willing in Philadelphia, Brigadier- 
General Henry Bouquet asks "Why did you not go 
to the Assembly? upon such a brilliant night. 
I am afraid you were not well, tell me I am mis- 
taken. "^^ 

Edward Burd, says in a letter, dated November 
27th, 1767, and addressed either to his sister or his 
grandfather:^^ 

"Some young Gentlemen have subscribed to an 
Assembly for this Season. Among the Principal 
Managers are Billy Allen 8c Jemmy Willing. The 
Subscribers may send a Tickett to any Young Lady 
for the Evening; Notwithstanding which Priviledge 
J. Willing tells me that He is almost tired of it 
because the Girls are so little." 

In another letter of "Neddy" Burd, dated De- 
cember 15, 1768, he says:^^ 



^^ George Harrison Fisher: Brigadier General Henry Bouquet; The 
Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, Philadelphia, 1879, 
Volume III., page 139. 

2^ Lewis Burd Walker: Life of Margaret Shippen, wife of Benedict 
Arnold; The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, 
Philadelphia, 1900, Volume XXIV., page 410. 

29 Lewis Burd Walker: Life of Margaret Shippen, wife of Benedict 
Arnold; The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, 
Philadelphia, 1900, Volume XXIV., page 410. 



62 THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. 

"The Dutchess of Gordon is to appear to Night 
at the Assembly & is to be richly deckt with Dia- 
monds & other Jewels & dressed most splendidly 
in Silver Silk. Neither She or Coll. Morris chuse 
to dance whenever they can avoid it, and therefore 
the Company will be deprived of the Honour of 
dancing with a Dutchess. She has nothing to 
boast of with Regard to her Face or Person. Yet 
she is well esteemed as She is pretty sociable and 
dont seem to require that Preeminence over other 
Ladies which the York Ladies are so ambitious of." 

VIII. 

We have seen that in the year 1755 one of the 
Assembly managers was Thomas Willing. He was 
not a subscriber the first year the dances were 
given. He was then only eighteen and would have 
come in under the subscription of his father, had 
the son been of sufficient age to attend. But he 
was a subscriber during the season of 1749-50. 
In the year 1755, when only twenty-four years of 
age, Thomas Willing had just begun on his career 
of oft repeated services to the commonwealth. 
Having been sent in his youth to England where he 
studied law in the Temple, he had become recently, 
upon the death of his father from yellow fever 
while as mayor the latter was fighting that then 



THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. 63 

terrible disease, the head of the firm of Willing 
and Morris. ^° In the previous year he had served 
as secretary to the congress of delegates which was 
held at Albany. In 1763 he was mayor of Phila- 
delphia. In 1765 his name headed the list of 
signers of the Non-Importation Resolutions, in 
which the signers declared the Stamp Act uncon- 
stitutional and against the best interests both of 
the colonies and Great Britain. In 1767 he was 
appointed a justice of the Supreme Court of the 
Province of Pennsylvania, and in that judicial 
office he was one of the last to act under the 
colonial form of government. He presided in 1774 
in Carpenter's Hall over the Provincial Congress 
of Pennsylvania, and was elected by Pennsylvania 
as one of her representatives in the First and Second 
Continental Congresses. When the vote for independ- 
ence upon Richard Henry Lee's resolution came up, 
he voted fearlessly until the end in accordance with 
the instructions which Pennsylvania had given to 
her delegates. The growth of the movement for in- 
dependence was a gradual one.^^ In the beginning, 

^° Occasionally this firm is erroneously referred to by modern 
writers and orators under the name of Morris and Willing. 

^^ The Examination of Joseph Galloway, Esq., by a committee of the 
House of Commons, edited by Thomas Balch, Philadelphia, 1855, passim. 



64 THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. 

however, the leading men of the colonies were not 
in favor of a separation from Great Britain. 

Nor were the mass of the people, either, in most 
of the colonies at first desirous of breaking with 
the mother land. But as event after event fol- 
lowed one another, owing partly to the stupidity 
of the men who ruled England, the movement for 
independence, fanned by ambitious agitators who 
had everything to gain from any sort of a change, 
and nothing to lose, suddenly began to forge ahead. 
As a result, as happens now-a-days about other 
questions, one important politician after another, in 
spite of himself, was won over to the idea of cut- 
ting the bonds that united the thirteen colonies 
with the mother land. In that way the delegation 
of colony after colony was won over in favor of 
independence. But the opposition to a final and 
absolute break with Great Britain found its chief 
resistance in Pennsylvania and, as on account of 
her wealth and geographical position, Pennsylvania 
was the most influential of the colonies, her favorable 
action was most necessary to the movement for 
independence. 

Much unfavorable criticism has been aimed at 
Pennsylvania because she was so slow in favoring 
a final severance of the political ties uniting the 



THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. 65 

colonies with the motherland. But her critics 
should not forget that when she did finally join 
in the movement for independence, not only did 
Pennsylvania remain firmly loyal to her sister 
States during the War of Independence but also 
later on Pennsylvania was equally faithful to the 
Union during all of the War of 1812 and the Civil 
War of 1861-65. 

A propos of a dinner at Thomas Willing's, at 
which were present Washington, Jay, Livingston, 
Patrick Henry, Peyton Randolph, William Paca 
and Samuel Chase, John Adams in his Diary says : 

"Sunday, ii October, 1774. 

"There is such a quick and constant succession 
of new scenes, characters, persons and events 
turning up before me, that I can't keep any regular 
account * * * Dined at Mr. Willing's, who is 
Judge of the Supreme Court here, and the gentle- 
men from Virginia, Maryland and New York, a 
most splendid feast again; turtle and everything 
else. Mr. Willing is the most sociable, agreeable 
man of all." 

Willing ih his Autobiography says: "I voted 
against the Declaration in Congress, not only 
because I thought America at that time unequal 
to such a conflict, as must ensue, having neither 



66 THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. 

Arms, Ammunition or Military Experience, but 
chiefly because the Delegates of Pennsylvania were 
not then authorized by their instructions from the 
Assembly, or the voice of the People at large to 
join in such a vote." During the occupation of 
Philadelphia by the British Army, he remained in 
the city. But when Sir William Howe sent a 
person to administer to him the oath of allegiance 
to George the Third, he refused to take it. "For 
all this no one ever questioned his political integrity ; 
though many did that of men about him who 
were vigorous in declaring their devotion to the 
cause of independence."^^ 

That he was not alone in his belief that a final 
break with Great Britain was not then opportune, 
is shown by the following extracts from a letter 
written by his partner, Robert Morris, on July 
20th, 1776, to Colonel Joseph Reed. Morris said: 
"I am not for making any sacrifice of dignity 
but still I would hear them [the British Com- 
missioners] if possible; because, if they can offer 
peace on admissible terms, I believe the great 
majority of America would still be for accepting 

^^ Life and Correspondence of the Rev. William Smith, D.D., by his 
Great Grandson, Horace Wemyss Smith, Philadelphia, 1880, Vol. II., 
page sii. 



THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. 67 

£^ M33 Fiij-ther on in the same letter he says: '*I 
have uniformly voted against and opposed the 
Declaration of Independence, because in my poor 
opinion, it was an improper time, and will neither 
promote the interest nor redound to the honour 
of America; for it has caused division when we 
wanted union, and will be ascribed to very different 
principles than those which ought to give rise 
to such an important measure." 

Though Thomas Willing, because doubtless he 
was the leading active representative of the conser- 
vative and aristocratic party in the City and the State, 
and also on account of the way he voted, was not 
reelected to the Continental Congress in 1776, yet 
such was the esteem in which he was held, not 
only in Philadelphia, but also through the country 
at large, that when the Bank of North America 
was chartered in 1782, he was chosen its first Presi- 
dent.^* That office he continued to hold until he 
was taken from it in 1791 to be appointed President 
of the First Bank of the United States. And when, 
as a result of political opposition, in spite of the strong 

^^ Peter Force: American Archives, Fifth Series, Washington, 1848, 
Volume I., page 468. 

^* Lawrence Lewis, Jr.: A History of the Bank of North America, 
the First Bank chartered in the United States; Philadelphia, 1882, 
page 34. 



68 THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. 

advocacy by the Secretary of the Treasury of the 
United States, Albert Gallatin, of the renewal of 
the charter of the bank, "its charter ceased 
and its affairs were wound up, it paid in gold, 
during the prevalence of a paper currency which 
placed gold at a high premium, $ii6 for each |ioo 
of its capital. "^^ 

Among the many honors that came to Thomas 
Willing, it should not be forgotten that he was 
elected on January 19th, 1768, to the American 
Philosophical Society. His portrait, copied after 
Stuart, hangs in the mayor's room in the City 
Hall. 

He married in 1762 Ann McCall, daughter of 
Samuel McCall, and his wife, Ann Searle. In the 
latter years of his life, many people knew when 
it was twelve o'clock owing to the regularity with 
which he returned home for lunch. He was in the 
habit of wearing shoes with broad toes, with the 
result that among his relatives and intimate friends 
he was often referred to as "square toes." In 
his later years, too, he had served in the parlor 
every evening for those that were there at nine 
o'clock, cup custard and Madeira wine; and if his 

^^ Horace Wemyss Smith: Life and Correspondence of the Rev. 
William Smith, D.D., Philadelphia, 1880, Voltime II., page 513. 



THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. 69 

children stayed beyond ten o'clock he would wind 
up the evening by saying to them that there was 
" a welcome to come and a welcome to go. " 

IX. 

Among the manuscripts in the collections of the 
Historical Society of Pennsylvania, there is an 
undated list of ladies who attended undoubtedly 
some important social function in colonial days. 
Judging by their names it was probably the As- 
semblies one season, but there is no evidence to 
establish this surmise beyond doubt. In order to 
arrive approximately at the date of this list, the 
following suggestions are offered. This list would 
seem to have been prepared between the years 
1763, when Ann McCall became Mrs. Thomas 
Willing, and 1781, the year she died. Further, 
judging by many of the names on the list, it 
apparently antedates the beginning of the Revolu- 
tion; and in addition it would seem that it was 
written as early as 1774, the year that Polly 
Franks died. In that case Abigail Willing whose 
name is on the list was the daughter of Charles 
Willing the immigrant, she having been bom 
in 1747 and died in 1791. Mrs. Charles Will- 
ing mentioned in the list was probably the wife 



70 THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. 

of Charles Willing, a son of Charles Willing who 
died of yellow fever while fighting that scourge 
in 1754. In that case she was before her marriage 
Elizabeth H. Carrington of Barbadoes. Lydia 
McCall, Miss McCall, and Polly McCall were 
doubtless the daughters of George McCall, who was 
bom in April, 1724 and died in 1758, and whose "wife 
was the Mrs. Lydia McCall in Watson's list of 
belles. "^^ Miss "N. Chew" was doubtless Anna 
Maria Chew, who was bom in 1749 and died in 
1812. "Miss Chew" in that case referred either 
to her older sister, Mary Chew or the youngest, 
Elizabeth Chew. Perhaps some of the readers 
of these pages will lend a hand to the author to 
narrow down more exactly the year when this list 
was written. The list is as follows: 

"Miss Allen [in another hand] alias Governess. 
Miss Allen 
Mrs. Hamilton 
Miss Oswald 
Mrs. Oswald 
Mrs. Franklin 
Miss Franklin 
Mrs. Barclay 

^^ Thomas Balch's Letters and Papers, etc., page Ixxxviii. 



THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. 71 

Mrs. Plumsted 

Mrs. Francis Sen"" 

Mrs. Francis Jun*" 

Mrs. Arch"^ McCall. 

Mrs. Saml. Mifflin 

Miss Galloway. 

Mrs. Mifflin. 

Mrs. Dowell. 

Mrs. Ellis 

Mrs. Doct. Shippen. 

Miss Shippen 

Miss Blair 

Mrs. Franks. 

Miss Franks. 

Miss Polly Franks. 

Mrs. White. 

Miss White. 

Mrs. Purviance 

Miss Purviance. 

Miss Polly Purviance. 

Miss Johanna Purviance. 

Mrs. Bond. 

Mrs. Thomas Bond. 

Miss Bond [in another hand] alias Mrs. Martin. 

Miss B. Bond. 

Miss Wayman [in another hand] alias Smith. 



72 THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. 

Mrs. Gilbert. 

Mrs. Cox. 

Miss Wikoff. 

Mrs. Shippen. 

Mrs. Nixon. 

Miss Davis. 

Mrs. Lawrence [in another hand] Thomas. 

Mrs. Shee [in another hand]. 

Miss Lawrence. 

Mrs. Masters. 

Mrs. Larney. 

Miss Kitty Lawrence. 

Miss P. McCall at Arc*^. 

Miss McCall & her sister. 

Mrs. John Lawrence. 

Miss Lawrence. 

Mrs. Duchi. 

Mrs. Swift. 

Mrs. Jos. Swift. 

Mrs. Col. White. 

Miss White. 

Miss T. J. White. 

Mrs. Wilcocks. 

Mrs. Baths. 

Miss Franks. 

Miss Marks. 



THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. 73 

Miss Stedman (daughter of Mrs. Charles Sted- 

man?) 
Mrs. Alex^ Stedman. 
Miss Stedman. 
Miss Qifton. 
Miss Nancy Qifton. 
Miss Nelly Clifton. 
Mrs. Turner. 
Miss Bird. 
Mrs. Sims. 
Miss Sims. 

Mrs. Wikoff & Miss Ally Cox. 
Mrs. Stephens. 
Miss Flowers. 
Mrs. Hopkinson. 
Miss Hopkinson [in another hand] Mrs. Morgan. 

Miss Hopkinson. 

Miss Hopkinson. 

Mrs. Wood. 

Mrs. Relfe. 

Mrs. Bell. 

Mrs. Cadwalader. 

Miss Cadwalader. 

Miss Polly Cadwalader [in another hand] & 

her sister. 
Mrs. Richards. 



74 THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. 

Mrs. Levy. 

Miss Levy. 

Mrs. Dickinson. 

Mrs. Cox [in another hand] Charles Cox. 

Miss Paxton. 

Miss IngHs. 

Mrs. Chew. 

Miss Chew [in another hand] 8c her sister N. 

Chew? 
Mrs. Ross 
Miss Ross. 
Mrs. WiUing. 
Mrs. Thos. Willing. 
Mrs. Chas. Willing. 
Miss Willing. 
Miss Abigail Willing. 
Mrs. Searle. 
Miss Smith, at Searles. 
Mrs. Lydia McCall. 
Miss McCall. 
Miss Polly McCall. 
Mrs. Gilbert Barclay. 
Miss Pearson. 
Mrs. Tillman. 
Miss Tillman. 
Mrs. Walling. 
Miss Shippen. 



THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. 75 

Miss Shippen. 

Mrs. Shippen. 

Miss Abbey Shippen. 

Mrs. Clymer [in another hand]. 

Miss Meredith. 

Mrs. Legay. 

Miss Hockley. 

Mrs. Morgan. 

Miss North. 

Mrs. West. 

Mrs. Hoops. 

Mrs. Mease. 

Mrs. Glentworth. 

Miss P. Hoops. 

Miss Kitty McCall, Major's Daughter." 

X. 

Among those who attended the AssembHes in 
colonial days and showed by his life that social 
amusement and sterling public acts were not in- 
compatible, was Lieutenant Colonel Joseph Shippen, 
the second son of Edward Shippen "of Lancaster," 
and grandson of Joseph Shippen, the latter a son of 
Edward Shippen, the first Mayor of the city. 
Colonel Shippen who was bom October 30, 1732, 
and graduated at Princeton in 1753, entered the 



76 THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. 

army and served in the expedition that captured 
in 1758 Fort Du Quesne. 

He was interested in many useful subjects, was 
elected a member of the American Philosophical 
Society January 19th, 1768, and was a generous 
patron and benefactor of Benjamin West. On the 
occasion of Colonel Shippen's visit to Italy, he 
and West were crossing the Abruzzi Mountains 
together on horseback late one day, when two 
banditti rushed out from their place of conceal- 
ment. Each bandit seized the bridle of one of the 
horses, and demanded of Colonel Shippen and 
West their money. After parleying a little. Colonel 
Shippen put his hand in his pocket, drew out his 
money wallet, and threw it on the ground, saying, 
"Well there, damn you, take it." As the man 
picked it up, the Colonel drew one of his pistols, 
fired and killed the fellow. Then the other bandit 
fled. 

Colonel Shippen was appointed in 1789 Judge of 
Lancaster County, and died February loth, 18 10, 
after having served his country, and filled with 
honor many reputable stations, esteemed by all 
who knew him as an eminently just and upright 
man. In his career he truly embodied the prin- 
ciples of noblesse oblige. To his services as a soldier, 



THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. 77 

he added the accompHshments of a scholar and a 
man of taste; and in the following lines that he 
wrote possibly about the year 1767, he has preserved 
for us the names of some of the ladies who were 
the belles in his day. 

"Lines Written in an Assembly Room. 

"In lovely White's most pleasing form, 

What various graces meet ! 
How blest with every striking charm ! 

How languishingly sweet! 

"With just such elegance and ease, 

Fair, Charming Swift appears; 
Thus Willing, whilst she awes, can please, 

Thus Polly Franks endears. 

"A female softness, manly sense. 

And conduct free from art. 
With every pleasing excellence. 

In Inglis charm the heart. 

"But see! another fair advance, 

With love commanding all ; 
See! happy in the sprightly dance. 

Sweet, smiling, fair M' Call. . . 



78 THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. 

"Each blessing which indulgent Heaven 

On mortals can bestow, 
To thee, enchanting maid, is given, 

Its masterpiece below. 

"In Sally Coxe's form and face, 

True index of her mind. 
The most exact of himian race 

Not one defect can find. 

"Thy beauty every breast alarms. 

And many a swain can prove 
That he who views your conquering charms, 

Must soon submit to love. 

"With either Chew such beauties dwell. 

Such charms by each are shared. 
No critic's judging eye can tell 

Which merits most regard. 

" 'Tis far beyond the painter's skill 

To set their charms to view; 
As far beyond the poet's quill 

To give the praise that's due. " 

The young ladies mentioned in Colonel Ship- 
pen's Lines were the belles of Philadelphia at 
that time, and as some further notice of them 
will be of interest, the present writer ventures to 



THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. 79 

identify them as follows. Of the first of these 
youthful beauties who is mentioned as "lovely 
White," the reference is to Miss Mary White, 
sister of Bishop White, and a daughter of Colonel 
Thomas White, one of the subscribers in the list of 
1748-49. She was born in 1748 and was about 
nineteen when the verses were written. She married 
Robert Morris the next year. The Prince de 
Broglie describing, in his Narrative of his visit to 
this country in 1782, how the French Minister, 
the Chevalier de la Luzerne, took him to tea at 
her house, says:^^ 

"The house is simple but well furnished and 
very neat. The doors and table are of a superb 
mahogany and beautifully polished. The locks and 
hinges of brass were curiously bright. The porcelain 
were arranged with great precision. The mistress 
of the house had an agreeable expression and was 
dressed entirely in white; in fact everything ap- 
peared charming to me. 

"I partook of most excellent tea and I should 
even now be still drinking it, I believe, if the Am- 
bassador had not charitably notified me at the 

^^ Narrative by the Prince de Broglie of a visit to America, 1782: 
translated from an unpublished manuscript by Elise Willing Balch; 
reprinted from The Magazine of American History, 1877. 



80 THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. 

twelfth cup, that I must put my spoon across it 
when I wished to finish with this sort of warm 
water. He said to me, 'It is almost as ill-bred to 
refuse a cup of tea when it is offered to you, as it 
would be for the mistress of the house to propose 
a fresh one, when the ceremony of the spoon had 
notified her that we no longer wish to partake of 
it.'" 

"Fair, charming Swift," refers to Miss Alice 
Swift, eldest daughter of John Swift and his first 
wife, Magdalen Kellock. She was born at Phila- 
delphia, on February 20th, 1750-51 and baptized 
at Christ Church on April 20, 1752. She married 
at "Croydon Lodge," Bucks Co., Pa., on November 
22, 1778, Robert Cambridge Livingston, son of 
Robert Livingston, Third Proprietor of the Manor 
of Livingston. 

"Willing, whilst she awes, can please," means 
Miss Abigail Willing, daughter of Charles Willing 
and his wife, Anne Shippen. She was bom June 
17th, 1747, and died unmarried, August loth, 1791. 

Polly Franks was the daughter of David Franks. 
She was born January 25th, 1747-8, and died August 
26th, 1774. 

The next of the fair charmers that Colonel 
Shippen presents to our view was Miss Katherine 



THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. 81 

Inglis, daughter of John Inghs and his wife, Catherine 
McCall. She was baptized October 26th, 1749, and 
lived with her cousin, Miss Margaret McCall, 
daughter of Samuel and Anne (Searle) McCall 
about fifty years, the greater portion of the time 
on Pine Street, opposite St. Peter's Church. Miss 
McCall died July loth, 1821, and Miss Inglis in 
January, 1842. Neither ever married, and they 
are both buried in the same tomb with the legend 
upon it "United through life; united in the grave. " 

"Sweet, smiling, fair M'Call, " refers to Miss 
Mary McCall, daughter of Samuel McCall, Junior; 
she was born March 13th, 1746-7, and died un- 
married at Philadelphia, May nth, 1773, and was 
buried in Christ Church ground. 

The next belle that Colonel Shippen described, 
"Sally Coxe," was the daughter of Mary Francis 
and William Coxe of New Jersey. She married 
Andrew Allen, a Justice of the Supreme Court of the 
Province of Pennsylvania. 

By "Either Chew," Colonel Shippen undoubtedly- 
referred to the three oldest daughters of Benjamin 
Chew and his first wife, Mary Galloway, Miss 
Mary Chew, born March loth, 1747-8, who married 
May 8th, 1768, Alexander Wilcocks; Miss Anna 
Maria Chew, bom November 7, 1749, and died 



82 THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. 

unmarried in 1812, and Miss Elizabeth Chew, bom 
September loth, 1751, who married May 26th, 
1774, Edward Tilghman. 

Colonel Shippen married in 1768 the beautiful 
Jane Galloway of Maryland. Her portrait by West 
now hangs in the hall of the Historical Society of 
Pennsylvania. It is a splendid example of West 
and signed all over the canvas by the artist's brush. 
She was a cousin of Joseph Galloway, who was 
speaker of the Legislative Assembly of Pennsyl- 
vania and one of the early members of the American 
Philosophical Society .^^ 

XL 

During the War for Independence some attempts 
were made to keep up the Assembly Dances. 
Watson says that he saw written upon a "parch- 
ment," a list of about seventy names, subscribers 
to the Assemblies for the winter of 1779-80. The 
list is preceded by a short statement: "We, the 
sub"^ do respectfully promise to pay to C. Pettitt, 
I. M. Nesbitt, I. Mitchell and T. Lawrence, Man- 
agers, and T. Patten, Treasurer of the Philad^. 

^^ The Examination 0} Joseph Galloway, Esq., late Speaker of the 
House of Assembly of Pennsylvania, by a committee of the House of 
Commons, originally published at London in 1779. Edited by Thomas 
Balch for the Seventy-Six Society, Philadelphia, 1855. - 



THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. 83 

Assembly L 112 ^V towards the support of the 
same, the ensuing year 

'^Philad^ Dec^ 31, I779-" 

As Watson remarks, the large sum of the sub- 
scription was due to the fact that it was payable in 
Continental money, which was very much de- 
preciated. 

A couple who took a leading part in the social 
life of Philadelphia toward the close of the War 
for Independence and in the early years of the 
Republic were Mr. and Mrs. WilHam Bingham, 
Junior. He was a son of that William Bingham 
who was a subscriber to the First Dancing As- 
sembly, and was bom at Philadelphia March 8th, 
1752. He received the A. B. degree from the 
University of Pennsylvania in 1768. On January 
19th, 1787, he was elected to the American Philo- 
sophical Society. In 1795 he was chosen one of the 
United States Senators from Pennsylvania and for 
a time served as President pro tern of that body. 
He also served his Alma Mater as trustee from 1791 
to the day of his death, which occurred at Bath, 
England, February 7th, 1804. He married Anne, a 
daughter of Thomas Willing. Miss Anne Rawle, 
writing on November 4th, 1780, to her mother, 
Mrs. Samuel Shoemaker in New York, mentions 



84 THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. 

Mrs. Bingham. She writes :^^ "Speaking of hand- 
some women brings Nancy Willing to mind. She 
might set for the queen of Beauty, and is lately 
married to Bingham who returned from the West 
Indies, with an immense fortune. They have set 
out in highest style; nobody here will be able 
to make the figure they do, equepage, house, clothes, 
are all in the newest taste." 

One of their daughters, Anne Louise Bingham, 
married August 23rd, 1798, the Right Hon. Alex- 
ander Baring, afterwards Lord Ashburton. A trus- 
tee of the British Museum, a member of the Privy 
Council, and D. C. L. of Oxford University, he 
was one of the negotiators of the Webster- Ashburton 
Treaty, which, among other things, settled part of 
the boundary between the United States of America 
and the Dominion of Canada. 

From the Chevalier de Chastellux, who had seen 
active service during the Seven Years' War and was 
elected in 1775 for his literary labors one of the 
forty immortals of UAcademie Frangaise, we have, 
during his time of service in America under Rocham- 
beau, some glimpses of Philadelphia society.*^ He 

^^ Rawle-Shoemaker Papers, Volume II., page 38. 

*" Thomas Balch: The French in America during the War of Inde- 
pendence of the United States, 1 777-1 783; Philadelphia, Volume II., 
189s, pages 77-79. 



THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. 85 

was elected to the American Philosophical Society 
on the same day as his famous compatriot, the 
Marquis de la Fayette, January 19th, 1781. 

Chastellux gives an account of a dance or ball 
at the chevalier de la Luzerne's which he attended.*^ 
It was "a very agreeable assembly," he says, "for 
it was given to a private society, on the occasion 
of a marriage. There were about twenty women, 
of whom twelve or fourteen danced; each of them 
having her partner according to the custom in 
America. Dancing is said to be at once the em- 
blem of gaiety and love: here it seems to be the 
emblem of legislation and marriage; of legislation 
inasmuch as the places are marked out, the quad- 
rilles chosen, every proceeding provided for, cal- 
culated and submitted to regulation: of marriage, 
as to every lady a partner is given with whom she 
must dance the whole evening without taking 
another. It is true that every severe law requires 
mitigation, and that it often happens, that a young 
lady, after dancing two or three first dances with 
her partner, may make a fresh choice or accept 

^^ Le Marqms de Chastellux: Voyages dans V Amerique septentrionale 
dans les annees 1780, 178 1 &° 1782; Paris, 1786. Volume I., page 
233; Travels in North America in the years 1780, 17 81 and 1782: 
London, 1787, Voltune I., page 276. 



86 THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. 

the' invitations which she receives : but the com- 
parison still holds good, for it is a marriage in the 
European fashion. Strangers have generally the 
privilege of being complimented with the hand- 
somest ladies as partners. The Comte de Damas 
had Mrs. Bingham for his partner, and the Vicomte 
de Noailles, Miss Shippen. " Then after mentioning 
the "chief Justice of Carolina," Mr. Pendleton, 
and Mr. Duane, a member of Congress, among 
those who were present, the Marquis continues, 
"The ball was suspended, towards midnight, by a 
supper, served in the manner of coffee on several 
different tables. On passing into the supper room, 
the Chevalier de la Luzerne gave his hand to Mrs. 
Morris and gave her the precedence, an honour 
pretty generally bestowed on her, as she is the 
richest woman in the city, and all ranks here being 
equal, men follow their natural bent, by giving the 
preference to riches." The ball, he tells us, lasted 
until two o'clock in the morning. 

The Marquis de Chastellux in his Travels, says:*^ 

"In the afternoon we drank tea with Miss 

Shippen. This was the first time, since my arrival 

in America, that I had seen music introduced into 

society, and mix with its amusements. Miss Rut- 

^^ Chastellux; Jrow/^, Volume L, page 293. _ ; . 



THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. 87 

ledge played on the harpsichord, and played very 
well. Miss Shippen sang with timidity, but with 
a pretty voice. M. Ottaw, secretary to the Chevalier 
de la Luzerne, sent for his harp; he accompanied 
Miss Shippen and played also several pieces. Music 
naturally leads to dancing; the Vicomte de Noailles 
took down a violin, which was mounted with harp 
strings, and he made the young ladies dance, whilst 
their mothers and other grave personages chatted 
in another room. If music and the fine arts prosper 
in Philadelphia, if society once becomes easy and 
gay there, and if they learn to accept pleasure 
when it presents itself without a formal invitation, 
then it will be possible to enjoy all the advantages 
peculiar to their manners and government, without 
need of envying Europe anything. " 

Speaking of the subscription Assembly, he says :^^ 
"The Assembly, or subscription ball, of which I 
must give an account, comes in here most appro- 
priately. At Philadelphia, as at London, Bath, Spa, 
etc., there are spaces where the young people 
dance, and others where those to whom that sort 
of amusement does not suit, play different games of 
cards; but at Philadelphia only games of commerce 

^^ Chastellux, French edition, 1786, Volume I., pages 262-3, English 
edition, 1787, Volume L, page 314. 



88 THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. 

are allowed. A manager, or master of ceremonies 
presides at these methodical amusements: he pre- 
sents to the danseurs and the danseuses, folded 
billets which each contain a number; thus it is 
fate which decides the partner which one is to have 
for the whole evening. All the dances are arranged 
before hand, and the dancers are called each in 
turn. These dances, like the toasts which we drink 
at table, have some relation to politics: one is 
called the success of the campaign, another, the 
defeat of Burgoyne, and a third, Clinton's retreat. 
The managers are generally chosen from among 
the most distinguished officers of the army; at 
present this important place is held by Colonel 
Wilkinson, who is also Clothier general of the 
army. Colonel Mitchell, a small stout man, fifty 
years of age, a great judge of horses and who lately 
was contractor for carriages {qui avoit dernierement 
V entreprise des voitures) both for the American and 
the French armies, was formerly the manager; but 
when I saw him he had descended from the magis- 
tracy and danced like any private citizen. It is 
said that he exercised his office with much severity, 
and it is related that a young lady who was taking 
part in a quadrille, having forgotten her turn, 
because she talked with a friend, he came up and 



THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. 89 

said to her aloud: comme Miss, take care what 
you are about, do you think you are here for your 
pleasure ? 

"The assembly to which I was taken upon 
leaving Mr. Wilson's, was the second of the winter. 
I was apprized that it would be neither numerous 
nor brilliant, for at Philadelphia as at Paris, the 
best society {la bonne compagnie) seldom go to 
balls before Christmas. Nevertheless, upon enter- 
ing the room, I foimd twenty, or twenty-five women 
dancing. It was whispered to me, that having 
heard a great deal of the Vicomte de Noailles and 
the Comte de Damas, they were come with the 
hope of seeing and dancing with them; but the 
ladies were entirely disappointed, for those gentle- 
men had left that morning." Chastellux mentions 
among those present Miss Footman, as being "a 
little contraband, that is to say, suspected of not 
being a very good Whig; for the Tories have been 
publicly excluded from this assembly." 

XII. 

Shortly after the War of Independence was 
brought to a successful conclusion by the Treaty 
of Paris in 1783, the fashionable people of Phila- 



90 THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. 

delphia revived the "Assemblies. " The City Tavern 
where they were then held was not approved by 
many of the subscribers, owing to lack of space 
to give the dances. Accordingly, a fund was 
started to build a more commodious hall where 
the "Assemblies" might be held. This "City 
Dancing Assembly Fund" begins with a subscrip- 
tion list dated October the 19th, 1786. The preamble 
of this paper reads: "The ladies and gentlemen 
of this city, having of late repeatedly testified their 
disapprobation of the present Assembly room at 
the City Tavern as being in every way inadequate 
to the purpose, it is proposed to open a subscription 
for procuring a suitable lot of ground and erecting 
thereon a convenient building, containing a spacious 
ball room." The "City Tavern" referred to in 
this paper, where the Assembly Balls were given, 
stood on Second Street, above Walnut Street. It 
was built and opened shortly before the Revolution, 
and superseded the old London Coffee House as a 
principal place of resort. At the City Tavern 
many dinners, receptions and dances were given. 
A nimiber of people signed the above paper either 
as subscribers of money or as givers of shares of 
stock in the tavern. The plan, however, languished 
for several years. 



THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. 91 

While the subscription apparently did not grow 
very fast, the balls seemed to thrive. Among those 
to attend the Assemblies in 1788 was Mrs. Collins. 
The Managers that year were J. M. Nesbitt, G. 
Meade, T. L. Moore and John Craig. 

In the year 1790, Colonel Joseph Shippen, who 
was then living in the country, brought his daughter 
Mary — ^better known as "Polly" Shippen — then a 
young lady of seventeen to the Assemblies. On her 
invitation card for that year, now in the author's 
possession, she is addressed not by her given nanie 
but by the initial of her nickname, the phraseology 
on the card reading: 

"Philadelphia Assembly, 1790. 

The Favour of Miss P. Shippen's 

Company is requested for the Season. 

J. M. Nesbitt, W. Stewart, 

Geo. Meade, Jos. Redman, 

John Swanwick, Geo. Harrison, 

"Managers." 

"Polly" Shippen married in 1771 Samuel Swift, 
a nephew of John Swift who was a member of the 
first Board of Managers of the Assemblies, and son 
of Joseph Swift. She died June 2nd, 1809, and is 
buried with her husband at Old Trinity Church, 



92 



THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. 



M 



.«. 



^^,.^PBUHIA__As^^^^^ 



^ 
^ 
^ 



^ 
^ 
% 




1790 



Tie Favour ^^^f^^^ ^' *:^^ty:^z^^,y.^ y 
^ [ Company is requeued for the Sea/on. 

J. M. Nesbitt, W. Stewart, 



•«. 



Geo. Meade, Jos. Redman, 

John Swanwick, Geo. Har.rison> 
MANAGERS. 



3 



Jn 






Reprint of a card^of 1790. 



THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. 93 

Oxford, Philadelphia.*^ He graduated at the Uni- 
versity of Pennsylvania in 1786. 

"Polly" Shippen was a favorite in society. A 
few of the invitation cards from the many which 
she received have been preserved. At this late 
date they may not be without some interest, for they 
were sent by members of some of the notable 
families of Philadelphia in the past; and one 
serves as a connecting link with New York. One, 
probably all of these invitations were sent in the 
winter of 1791-92, during the first Presidency of 
Washington. 

"Mrs. Mifflin requests the favor of Miss Polly 
Shippen's company at Tea and Cards on Wednesday 
next. 

"Wednesday." 



"Mrs. Livingston requests the honor of Miss 
Shippen's company at Tea and Cards next Tuesday 
evening. 

"Tuesday." 



** There is a bronze tablet in Trinity Church, Oxford, put up at 
the suggestion of Edward Swift Buckley, Jr., Esq., in memory of 
Samuel and Mary Shippen Swift. The congregation of Trinity 
Church was formed in 1698; the present handsome little church was 
built in 1711. 



94 THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. 




•<i:^lj5*^^>-*^?^-</ '^ 





^,5?t^ ig.iA^'^Tt^''?^^ 




Mai 



y w<;^ yt^^'^ C,r>^^^^ ^^p^^ ^ 



fitffM^-tJ 




Reprints of two invitation cards addressed in 1792 to Miss Shippen. 



THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. 95 

"Mrs. Powel requests the Favor of Miss Shippen's 
company to spend the Evening on Saturday next. 
"Wednesday nth January 1792." 

"Mrs. and the Miss Chews request the pleasure 
of Miss Shippen's company to spend the evening 
on Tuesday, the 31st of Jany. 
"Monday, Jany. 23d." 

XIII. 

In December 1791, another effort was made to 
erect a suitable dancing hall for the Assemblies 
by starting a new subscription list. 

In the new subscription agreement it was said: 

"Proposals for Obtaining Subscriptions to Building 
a Dancing Assembly-Room," etc. 

"I. The simi subscribed shall constitute stock 
entitled to receive not less than six per cent, per 
annum, to be paid annually; the same to arise 
out of the subscriptions to the Dancing Assembly 
and of the rents received for all other uses to which 
the building shall be applied. 

"II. The stock shall be divided into shares of 
twenty pounds each. 

"III. When one hundred and fifty shares are 
subscribed, the subscribers shall be required to 



96 THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. 

meet for the piirpose of choosing a Treasurer and 
Trustees to carry the design into execution." 

A meeting of the Assembly subscribers was held 
February 2, 1792, and the minutes of that meeting 
read as follows: 

"At a meeting held, pursuant to Public Notice, 
of the Subscribers to the proposals for Building 
a Dancing Assembly Room, etc., Mr. John M. 
Nesbit being voted into the chair, it was resolved : — 

"I. That seven Trustees shall be chosen by 
ballot, a majority of whom to be a quorum. 

"II. That the said Trustees shall fix upon and 
procure a lot or lots for the purpose of erecting the 
building thereon. 

"III. That the said Trustees shall determine on 
a plan for said building, contract for the materials 
and erection thereof, and rent the same, when 
completed, for the purpose of concerts, or such 
other purposes not injurious thereto as they may 
think fit, subject, however, to the use of the City 
Dancing Assembly forever, the managers for the 
time being paying a reasonable annual rent for the 
same. 

"IV. That the said Trustees shall cause the 
money subscribed to be collected and lodged in 
the Bank of the United States, subject to the orders 



THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. 97 

of a quorum of their number, and shall issue receipts 
for the same in the following form: — 

"'Received, Philadelphia, , 

1792, of A. B., Pounds, being for 

shares subscribed to the Proposals for Build- 
ing a Dancing Assembly Room, etc., on which 
sum the said A. B. or the assigns of the said A. B. 
shall be entitled to receive such annual Dividends 
as may arise out of the net profits of the institution. ' 

"V. That in case of death, removal from the 
State, or resignation of any of the Trustees, a 
meeting of the subscribers shall be called (giving 
at least three days' notice in two Daily papers) 
to fill up such vacancy and that at all meetings, 
whether for Elections, or other purposes, the sub- 
scribers shall be entitled to a vote for every share 
they then hold. 

"VI. That the Trustees shall close the Annual 
Accounts and declare the Dividend on the Stock 
or Shares on the first day of July in every year, 
and pay the same on demand. 

"VII. That the ntmiber of Shares to be sub- 
scribed to this institution shall not exceed four 
hundred. 

"The subscribers then proceeded to the election 
of trustees, and the following gentlemen were duly 



98 THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. 

chosen: Mr. John M. Nesbit, Mr. Jaspar Moylan, 

Mr. Walter Stewart, Mr. Henry Hill, Mr. Thomas 

L. Moore, Mr. Thomas M. Willing, Mr. WilHam 

Bingham. 

"Signed by order of the Subscribers, 

"JOHN M. NESBIT, 

" Chairman. 
"Philadelphia, Feb. 2, 1792." 

The list of subscribers to this building fund in 
1792 and 1793 was as follows: 

Thomas P. Anthony, Joseph Anthony, Jr., Joseph 
Anthony, W. Bingham, Peter Blight, Clement 
Biddle, B. L. Barende, Robert Bass, Charles Biddle, 
Andrew Bayard, John Barclay, Charles Baring, 
Edward Burd, Herman Baker, Benjamin F. Bache, 
John Brown, William Cramond, Robert Correy, 
B. Chew, Jr., James Crawford, D. H. Conyngham, 
Theop. Cazenove, James Cramond, A. Clow & Co., 
James Cox, John Craig, Henry Capper, Benjamin 
Chew, Sharp Delaney, Samuel Dickinson, Philemon 
Dickinson, Thomas Ewing, Christian Febiger, 
Thomas Fitzsimmons, William Gibbs, John Guier, 
Thomas Geisse, Henry Hill, George Harrison, Is. 
Hazlehurst, Benjamin Holland, Jared IngersoU, 
Samuel Jackson, D. Jackson, L. Jacoby, Thomas 
Ketland, John Kean, Stephen Kingston, Frederick 



THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. 99 

Kiihl, George Latimer, Moses Levy, P. L. Lemaigre, 
James Lyle, Thomas Lea, Thomas Leaming, John 
Leamy, Robert Morris, George Meade, Archibald 
McCall, William Miller, John Miller, Jr., John 
Montgomery, James McCurrach, John Morrell, 
William McKensie, T. L. Moore, William Miller, 
Jr., John F. Mifflin, Jasper Moylan, Archibald 
McCall, Jr., Samuel Meredith, William Mont- 
gomery, Joseph T. Miller, Alex. Murray, John 
Nixon, John M. Nesbit, John Nicholson, Samuel 
Powell, Charles Pettit, Michael Prager, C. G. 
Paleske, Andrew Porter, Mark Prager, Jr., Thomas 
Ruston, Richard Rundle, James Read, John Ross, 
Robert Rainey, Walter Stewart, John Sitgreaves, 
Robert Smith, John Swanwick, Charles Swift, An- 
drew Summers, Thomas L. Shippen, George Swift, 
Lawrence Seckel, John Travis, Thomas Tingey, 
Edward Tilghman, John Vaughan, Vanuxem & 
Lambert, Thomas Willing, Francis West, Jona. 
Williams, Alex. Wilcocks, Philip Wager, Thomas M. 
Willing, John West, John Waddington, John Wil- 
cocks, James Yard. 

XIV. 
Assemblies were given on Washington's birthday 
both in 1793 and 1794. A propos of the latter cele- 
bration the notice read thus : 



\ 



too THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. 

"City Dancing Assembly. 

"The subscribers to the City Dancing Assembly 
are informed that there will be a ball at Oeller's 
Hotel on Saturday evening, the 22nd inst., being 
the birth night of the President of the United 
States. No tickets will be sold for that night. 
Subscribers who wish tickets for strangers, will 
please apply to one of the managers previous to the 
night of the ball. 

"February 18." 

Wansey, in his Excursion to the United States, 
1794, thus speaks of the "Philadelphia Assembly, 
1794": 

"The Assembly Room, at Oeller's Hotel, must 
not pass undescribed; it is a most elegant room, 
sixty feet square, with a handsome music gallery 
at one end. It is papered after the French taste, 
with the Pantheon figures in compartments, imi- 
tating festoons, pillars and groups of antique 
drawings, in the same style as lately introduced 
in the most elegant houses in London. To help my 
readers to form some idea of the state of polished 
society there, I must subjoin the Rules for regu- 
lating their Assemblies, which I copied from the 
frame hung up in the room: 



THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. 101 

"Rules of Philadelphia Assembly, at Oeller's 
Hotel. 
"i. The Managers have the entire direction. 

2. The ladies rank in sets,*^ and draw for places 

as they enter the Room. The Managers 
have power to place strangers and brides 
at the head of the Dances. 

3. The ladies who lead, call the Dances al- 

ternately. 

4. No lady to dance out of her set without leave 

of a Manager. 

5. No lady to quit her place in the Dance, or 

alter the figure. 

6. No person to interrupt the view of the Dancers. 

7. The Rooms to be opened at six o'clock every 

Thursday evening during the season; the 
Dances to commence at seven and end at 
twelve precisely. 

8. Each set having danced a Country Dance, 

a Cotillion may be called, if at the desire 
of eight ladies. 

9. No stranger admissible, without a Ticket, 

signed by one of the Managers previously 
obtained. 

*^ "The Room, being so wide, will admit two, or even three sets 
to dance at the same time." 



102 THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. 

10. No gentleman admissible in boots, coloured 

stockings, or undress. 

11. No Citizen to be admissible unless he is a 

Subscriber. 

12. The Managers only are to give orders to the 

Music. 

13. If any dispute should unfortunately arise, the 

Managers are to adjust and finally settle 
the same; and any gentleman refusing to 
comply, becomes inadmissible to the further 
Assemblies of that season. " 

XV. 

The money referred to above as having been 
raised through subscription, in 1792 and 1793, 
by a little over one hundred prominent citizens of 
the city, was placed in the hands of trustees who 
bought a lot of land;*^ but a building apparently 
was not built upon it for the Dancing Assembly. 
From correspondence relating to this lot of ground, 
we learn that in 1797 Henry Hill and William 
Bingham were members of the Board of Managers 
of the City Dancing Assembly and in 1798 Henry 

*° Memorandum of Hemy Hill, October 26th, 1796 — Letter of 
John Taylor to Jasper Moylan, February 13, 1798. 



THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. 103 

Hill and Jasper Moylan.*^ Of the year 1797, an 
Assembly card, belonging to the late William 
Read Fisher, is inscribed: "Philadelphia, 1797. 
City Assembly. Admit WilHam Read to the City 
Assembly." 

A card sent to a member of the Swift family, 
in the possession of the author, reads as follows : 

"1798-9 
"City Dancing Assembly, 

" The Honor of M Company 

is requested for the Season. 

"Thomas W. Francis, w James Gibson 
Thomas Ketland, S) Jon'' Williams 

Matthews Pearce, g Stephen Kingston 

William McPherson S Sam' Murgatroyd. " 

The following card in the collections of the 
Historical Society of Pennsylvania not only tells 
something about the balls for the next winter of 
1 799-1 800, but also links a distinguished New York 
colonial name with the Assemblies. 



47 



Bill rendered by John Taylor to the Assembly Managers, March 
8th, 1797; — ibid., March 12th, 1798;— John Taylor to Jasper Moylan, 
February 13th, 1798. 



104 THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. 

"1799-I8OO 

"City Dancing Assembly 
"The honor of Miss Livingston's Company 
is requested for the Season 
"Philip Nicklin w Stephen Kingston 

John Travis u> Henry Wikoff 

Wm. Crammond § Richard Wilcox 

Sam\ Murgatroyd ^ Daniel Cox" 

Miss Livingston was possibly a daughter of 
the "Fair, charming Swift," mentioned in Colonel 
Shippen's Lines written in an Assembly Room, 
who married a son of the Third Proprietor of the 
Manor of Livingston. Miss Livingston attended the 
Assemblies for several seasons, as is shown by two 
other cards of invitation to the Assemblies in the 
collections of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. 
Those two cards are also evidence that the As- 
semblies continued to be given in Philadelphia in 
the early years of the nineteenth century. The 
cards read as follows: 

"1802 
"City Dancing Assembly 

"The honor of Miss Livingston's company 
is requested for the Season. 

"Thomas M. Willing ^ Stephen Kingston 
Matt^ Pearce g Samuel Mifflin 

Peter McCall S Henry Nixon. " 



THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. W5 

"1804-5 

"City Dancing Assembly 
"The honor of Miss Livingston's company- 
is requested for the Season 

"Jasper Moylan i Edward Shippen Burd 

Thomas Cadwalader g Robert Hare Junior 
Charles Jared IngersoU g Nathaniel Chapman." 

In this connection, too, it is of interest to men- 
tion that another Miss Livingston, also a descendant 
of "Fair, charming Swift" attended the Philadel- 
phia Assemblies for several seasons off and on during 
the early seventies of the nineteenth century. 

XVI. 

Meanwhile some advance was made in the project 
of building an Assembly Hall. In a letter of 
February 4th, 1808, it is stated that two hundred 
and two shares were subscribed for "and the residue 
belonging to Mr. Ross and Mr. McCall in the 
hands of Edward Shippen, Esq., arising from the 
sale of the City Tavern." At that time about a 
moiety of the subscriptions were paid. Among the 
original subscribers to the Dancing Assembly Fund 
were, William Bingham, Clement Biddle, Edward 



106 THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. 

Burd, Benjamin Chew, Archibald McCall, Archibald 
McCall, Jr., Thomas L. Shippen, Charles Swift, 
George Swift, Edward Tilghman, Thomas Willing 
and Thomas Mayne Willing. 

Although a considerable stttn was subscribed 
and over a hundred shares paid for, again the 
project to build an Assembly Hall came to nothing, 
as no building was erected. 

During the season of 1 8 12-13, in spite of our war 
with Great Britain over her attempt to impress 
our seamen into her service, the Assemblies were 
given. A set of the Assembly Rules for 1812-13 
are in the collections of the Historical Society of 
Pennsylvania, and are as follows ; 

"Rules 

"of the 

"Philadelphia Assembly 

"Season.. 1812 & 13. 



"i. The Affembly fhall confift of forty fub- 
fcribers. 

"2. The fubfcribers fhall be under the direction 
of five managers, who fhall have the entire manage- 
ment of the affembly. 

"3. Each fubfcriber will be entitled to two 
ladies' tickets. 



THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. 107 

"4. The treafurer fhall exhibit a regular account 
of receipts and difburfements, which account fhall 
be open to the infpection of the fubfcribers. 

"5. No gentleman's ticket transferrable except 
by confent of the managers. 

"6. The affembly rooms to be open at fix o'clock, 
and the dancing to commence at feven, and conclude 
at one. 

"7. No refrefhments admitted in the affembly 
room, but by order of the managers. 

"8. No fubfcriber admitted in boots. 

"9. Ladies or gentlemen fhall not leave their 
places after dancing down a country dance until 
the end of the dance, except in cafes of abfolute 
indispofition; and if they dance again during that 
dance, they are to take their places at the 
bottom. 

"10. The managers, and the ladies who dance 
with them, may stand up and take their places as 
fecond couple, and may retire when at bottom. 
i "11. The managers will be diftinguifhed by a 
white ribbon. 

" 12. Should any improper perfon be introduced, 
they will be compelled to quit the room and the 
fubfcriber introducing fuch perfon will be expelled 
the affembly. 



1(^ THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. 

"Laftly. Thefe rules and regulations fhall be 
printed and placed in the rooms, and every fub- 
fcriber is expected to fubfcribe his name in a book 
prepared for that purpofe. Any member acting 
contrary to them will render himfelf liable to be 
expelled the affembly, and forfeit his fubfcription. " 

In looking over the above list, one notices that 
the list of subscribers is even smaller than the 
lists of 1748-49 and 1749-50. In 1812-13 there 
were only "forty subscribers" under the "Direction 
of Five Managers." That reduced the subscription 
list about one third in comparison with the first 
list, a process just the opposite of the present day. 
Perhaps the reduction in the number of subscribers 
in 1 812 was due to the exigencies caused by the 
war. It was provided that the Assembly rooms 
were to be opened at six o'clock in the evening, 
and that dancing was to begin at seven and end at 
one the next morning. Also from the last rule, 
it may be inferred that the Assembly had a set of 
rooms where the subscribers and their invited 
guests were accustomed to assemble. 

At present it is not known whether the As- 
semblies were given during the last two years of 
the War of 18 12, which was fought in behalf of the 
neutral rights of the United States upon the high 



THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. 109 

seas. Nor is there proof at hand that the Assemblies 
were held each season in the years immediately 
following the cessation of that war. 

It is well known from persons now living not 
only that the Assemblies were not given during the 
Civil War, but also not in every year of the fifties 
of the past century. And from a comparison of 
many manuscripts relating to the social life of the 
city, it is safe to say that the Assemblies were 
not held during every year of the first half of the 
nineteenth century, and they probably were not 
even given in every year of the latter half of the 
eighteenth century. 

During the winter of 1817-18 a brilliant military 
ball was given at Washington Hall in honor of 
Washington's birthday. The cards of invitation 
read: 

"Military 

"Birth Night Ball 

"the honor of the company of 



"is requested at a Ball on the evening of 
the 23rd instant in celebration of the 
birth of Washington. 



110 THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. 

"Managers. 
"Col. C. C. Biddle Col. C. Raquet 

Col. A. M. Prevost Majr. J. R. IngersoU 

. Majr. J. G. Biddle G. Fairman, Esqr. 

R. Wharton, Esqr. Capt. W. Rawle, Junr. 

"Capt.Jno. Swift Capt. J. M. Scott 

Capt. C. Stevenson Capt. C. F. Roberts 

Lieut. C. W. Morgan Lieut. E. S. Fullerton 

"Washington Hall, 
"February ii, 
"1818." 
The list of the managers of that ball contain 
a number of surnames which have been notable 
both in the history and social life of the city. 

An Assembly card of the season of 181 7-1 8, 
which is still extant, reads as follows:*^ 
"Philadelphia Assembly. 
"Library Street. 

"The honour of 
"Miss A. Coock's 
"Company is requested at a Ball on Friday 
"Evening the 8 of January 1818 

"Introduced by Mr. E. Dutilh 

Subscriber, 
"not transferable." 

*^ Copied from a card in possession of Mrs. Nicholas Thotiron. 



THE: PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. Ill 

XVII. 1 ; 

About 1824 the trustees of the Dancing Assembly- 
Fund appear to have purchased a lot with a view of 
building an Assembly Hall, but afterwards to have 
sold it. And from a report of a committee appointed 
February 7th, 1824, we learn ^'That a lot of ground 
was taken upon lease from a Mr. John Taylor at 
150 Pounds per annimi; an attempt was made to 
erect a building thereon for the above purpose 
(an Assembly Hall) but was not finally carried into 
execution, and that the plan has proved abortive." 

Up to now it has not been possible to determine 
with any accuracy the dates of the two Assembly 
cards which immediately follow below. Possibly 
one or both were of a date earlier than the year 
1824 and perhaps they may have belonged to the 
thirties. The author will be much obliged for any 
facts that will help to determine their respective 
dates. 

An Assembly card that was sent to a member of 
the Willing family, now in the possession of the 
author, reads as follows : 

"City Dancing Assembly 

*' The Honour of Company 

is requested for the season. 



112 THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES, 



"R. W. Meade Jno. M. Read 

Wm. Meredith Geo. C. McCall 

E, S. Burd Managers j^^^^^^ -^^^^ 

C. J. IngersoU Thos Moore Willing." 



A card of Mrs. William Rawle reads: 
"City Dancing Assembly 

"The Honour of Mrs. W. Rawle's Company 
is requested for the Season 
"E. S. Burd Levett Harris 

N. Biddle Jno. M. Read 

C. J. Ingersoll ^^^^^^^ v^m. M. Camac 
Wm. Meredith Tho. Moore Willing" 

Charles Jared Ingersoll, whose name appears as 
a manager on the invitation card just mentioned, 
after studying law, became attache to the Ameri- 
can Embassy at Paris when Rufus King was 
our Minister to France. On his return home, he 
published Chiomara, sl poem (1800) and Edwy and 
Elgira, a tragedy (1801). In 1813 he was elected 
from Philadelphia to the lower House of Congress, 
and served again in that body from 1841 to 1847. 
He also wrote Julian, a poem (1831) and a His- 
torical Sketch of the Second War between the United 
States and Great Britain (4 vols., 1845-52). He 



THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. 113 

was elected a member of the American Philosophical 
Society, April 21st, 1815. He died in January, 1862. 
The Ridgway Library has among its manuscript 
collections the following letter addressed to James 
Rush by Joshua Francis Fisher: 

"Dear Sir: 

"I have been directed to inform you that you 
have been elected a Manager of the City Dancing 
Assembly and to request of you the favour to 
permit your name to be placed on our card. We 
know too well the value of your time to expect 
from you any attention to the arrangements for 
our Balls but we shall esteem it a particular honour 
to be nominally associated with you. 

" I inscribe myself 

with the highest respect 
"Y'ob. ser. 

"JOSHUA F. FISHER 

" In behalf of the Junior Managers. 
"Thursday evening, Nov. 26 

"Dr. RUSH." 

Probably that note was written about 1829 or 
1830. For it shows that Mr. Fisher was writing 



114 THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. 

as an Assembly manager to D'. Rush, apprising 
the latter of his election. From the Assembly- 
card of M'■^ William Rawle for the winter of 
1830-31, we know that James Rush was a manager 
that season, and that card taken with the note of 
Joshua Francis Fisher shows that the latter was a 
manager before the winter of 1830-31, very likely 
for that of 1829-30. James Rush, who was a 
brother of the celebrated diplomat and statesman, 
Richard Rush, one of the American negotiators of 
the treaty of 181 8 with Great Britain, was a scientist 
of distinction. Richard Rush was elected a member 
of the American Philosophical Society January 17th, 
1 81 7. Joshua Francis Fisher, who was a prominent 
citizen of Philadelphia, was elected a member of 
the American Philosophical Society April 19th, 1833. 
An Assembly account book kept by Henry 
Ralston in 1830-31 shows that the total income 
of the Assemblies that winter was $1480.25, and 
after Mr. Ralston had paid the expenses of the 
year, and also $475.82 for unpaid debts incurred 
the previous season, he had still left on hand $182.33. 
This book begins, "Henry Ralston's account with 
the Assemblies, November 20, 1830," and at the 
end is this endorsement, "Correct, Geo. N. Thom- 
son, H. D. Gilpin. " From the card of Mrs. William 



THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. 115 

Rawle for that winter we know the names of the 
managers at that time. This card reads : 

"AssembHes 

"The Honor of Mrs. W". Rawle's 

"Company is requested for the Season 

"H. Ralston James Markoe 

James Rush H. D. Gilpin 

J. P. Norris, Jr. ^^^^^^^^ Geo. H. Thompson 
Tho^ Rotch P. M. Nixon" 

At the foot of this card there is engraved in 
very small letters the name of the engraver, C. G. 
Childs, and "Philadelphia, 1830-31." Upon the 
back of James Rush's own individual invitation 
card for the season of 1830-31, he noted the fact 
that he was the oldest member of the board and 
then he went on to say: "It was always found a 
difficult matter to get persons to accept the office 
[of manager], so I preserve this card as a mark 
of the honor I received, to hand ladies to supper 
and to talk nonsense to young girls." 

William Rawle, the husband of Mrs. Rawle, 
was a member of a family that has given many 
gifted men to the Philadelphia Bar and for more 
than a century has looked after the legal interests 



116 THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. 

of the Penn family on this side of the Atlantic. 
William Rawle the elder was the first President of 
the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, to which 
position he was elected in 1825, the year after the 
society was formed, and in which office he served 
until his death in 1836. He was elected to the 
American Philosophical Society July 21st, 1786. 
His son, William Rawle the younger, was elected 
to the American Philosophical Society January 15th, 
1 841, and died in 1858. The latter was also a 
Vice-President of the Historical Society of Pennsyl- 
vania and a trustee of the University of Pennsyl- 
vania. It was probably to the latter' s wife that the 
several invitation cards referred to above were 
sent. 

The Joseph Parker Norris, whose name appears 
as a manager on the above card, was a descendant 
of Isaac Norris, the famous speaker of the Legislative 
Assembly in the middle of the eighteenth century. 
A Quaker, a statesman, and in addition a Hebrew, 
Latin and French scholar, Isaac Norris it was who 
proposed the inscription on the old State House 
Bell, "Proclaim liberty throughout the land unto 
all the inhabitants thereof." The Joseph Parker 
Norris who was a manager of the Dancing As- 
sembly in 1830-31, was President of the Bank of 



THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. 117 

Pennsylvania. He was elected a member of the 
American Philosophical Society, July 21st, 1815. 

Here is another Assembly card whose date is 
not accurately known. 

"Assemblies 

"The Honour of Company 

"is requested for the Season 

"N. Biddle G. C. McCall 

J. Rush ^^^^ ^^^ H. D. Gilpin 

W. M. Camac onagers ^^^ Markoe 

H. Ralston J. F. Fisher" 

"N. Biddle" undoubtedly was Nicholas Biddle, 
a Philadelphian of much distinction. A graduate of 
Princeton College, he became Secretary to the 
American Legation at Paris when General Armstrong 
was our minister to France, and then filled the 
same place at London when Monroe was Minister 
there. Returning to Philadelphia in 1807, Nicholas 
Biddle began the practice of the Law. He edited 
the ^'Port Folio,'' and compiled a Commercial 
Digest. He represented Pennsylvania in the Lower 
House of Congress in 1810-11; and was elected 
a member of the American Philosophical Society, 



118 THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. 

April 1 6th, 1813. He prepared the History of the 
Expedition under the command of Captains Lewis 
and Clark to the sources of the Missouri, which was 
published at Philadelphia in 18 14. He was ap- 
pointed in 1 8 19 by President Monroe a director of 
the Second Bank of the United States, and was 
made President of that institution in 1823, which 
office he held until the existence of the bank was 
terminated by the expiration of its charter in 
1836. On April nth, 1827, he read before the 
American Philosophical Society an eulogium on its 
late president, Thomas Jefferson. 

In 1839 a handsome Bachelors's Ball was given 
in the hall of the Franklin Institute, an institution 
founded in 1824 and which has proved of such 
inestimable service to the manufacturing develop- 
ment of our city. The managers of this dance 
were, "Edmund S. Coxe, P. McCall, J. Murray 
Rush, Richard Vaux, H. Cadwalader, Thos. W. 
Francis, Jas. H. Blight, John T. Lewis, Fras. Peters, 
W. Chancellor." The following account of the ball 
appeared in one of the newspapers of the day. 

"The Bachelors's Ball given at the Hall of the 
Franklin Institute, Chestnut Street, on Wednesday 
evening, was the most splendid entertainment of 
the kind ever presented in this city. Its manage- 



THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. 119 

ment was confided to twelve gentlemen who exer- 
cised fully their liberality and good taste in super- 
vising the various details of its preparation, and 
did, too, the honors of the evening to the satisfac- 
tion of all the company. There. were present from 
four to five hundred persons, including a nimiber 
of strangers, and officers of the Army and Navy in 
uniform. The ladies' dresses and general appear- 
ance were of surpassing brilliancy, and distinguished 
by the correct arrangement of colors and elegant 
effects, which here are so particularly evident in 
their costimies. There was much excellent dancing 
and waltzing to Johnson's brass band, and were 
we permitted we might indicate some remarkable 
displays of graceful motion. The four comers of 
the room were extensively decorated with flowers, 
from the garden of Mr. Dryburgh, and Fletcher & 
Bennett's shade lamps shed a soft light through 
the foliage. At the east end of the room was the 
orchestra, encircled by a selection of rare plants, 
and above were figures of Venus and Cupid, sur- 
rounded with evergreens. The west end contained 
a decorated statue of Cupid, and two of Skirving's 
peculiarly splendid and classic coltmms surmounted 
with large vases filled with flowers. Over the 
several figures were wax candles arranged in the 



120 THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. 

form of hives, and candles were also interspersed 
throughout the gas lights. A number of Natt's 
large mirrors added to the radiance of the scene. 
The supper room was divided from the dancing 
hall by a large curtain formed of the American 
flag. About half past one o'clock this was drawn, 
and the company entered and enjoyed the richest 
and fullest collation which has yet been prepared 
in the assembly room. The table was of a horse- 
shoe form — each lady had the comfort of a seat 
and was supplied with carte du souper printed on 
white satin. The supper was served up by Parkin- 
son and Hutchinson, and was a remarkable evidence 
of their increased skill in the sweetest of all callings. 
Sugar was wrought in numerous neat and beautiful 
designs, such as the graces supporting vases of 
flowers, giving the appearance of elegant alabaster 
figures; temples; gothic structures, pyramids and 
so forth. There were plate; glass and china from 
Mrs. Tyndal's elegant establishment; lamps of 
Comeliimi's best fabric; large antique vases, and 
in short, everjrthing that adorned the table with 
effect without an excess of display. At the north 
end of the room were three flags, the English, 
American and French interwoven, — the latter was 
supplied by M. Hersant, the French Consul. The 



THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. 121 

party broke up about three o'clock, highly pleased 
with a scene which had all the eclat of a public 
fete with the domestic elegance of a private enter- 
tainment." 

XVIII. 

In the middle of the last century, in the forties 
and the fifties, many of the notable people of Phila- 
delphia lived in Girard Row, that is the row of 
houses on the north side of Chestnut Street be- 
tween Eleventh and Twelfth Streets. It was so 
called because it belonged to the Estate of Stephen 
Girard, which he left to the city to found the 
college which now bears his name. In that row, 
at the comer of Eleventh and Chestnut Streets 
lived Robert McCall and his three sisters. Next to 
them was the Atherton family. At iio^ Joseph 
Swift lived. Mrs. and Miss Bell lived next door. 
William Piatt and his family also lived in that 
row, as well as Lawrence Lewis and his family. 
Mrs. George Blight and her daughter, Emily Blight, 
who was the first wife of Dr. Carter, had a house 
in that row. Another Miss Blight married Richard 
Rush of the navy, and Ellen Blight married Mr. 
Palmer of the army. Frank Peters and his family 
lived in that block, and William and Wharton 
Chancellor and their sister, Mrs. Twells and her 



122 THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. 

family, had a liouse in that row. The Henry Paul 
Becks were near Twelfth Street, and General 
Thomas Cadwalader had the house at the comer 
of Twelfth and Chestnut Streets. On the south 
side of Chestnut Street near Eleventh Street, 
Thomas Balch and Dr. Charles Frederick Beck 
lived together. Further west on the same side of 
Chestnut Street the Hartman Kuhns lived in a 
large double house which still stood not so long 
since. Next to them was Miss "Molly" Hamilton, 
a cousin. Further west in the same block the Isaac 
Harveys lived, and John A. Brown and his family 
had the house at the southeast comer of Chestnut 
and Twelfth Streets. In those days the Cleemanns 
lived in Girard. Street, as also the Rev. Dr. 
Ducachet of St. Stevens' Church. 

Francis S. Lewis, a yoimg man fond of society, 
gives us in his Joumal a few glimpses of the As- 
semblies in the winter of 1849. 

He writes, Jan. nth, 1849.*® "Last night the 
first of the Philadelphia Assemblies came off at 
Musical Fund Hall. It was well attended and 
everything went off well. Broke up about 4 
o'clock." 

*^ Communicated by Mrs. Edward F. Beale. 



THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. 123 

Again, April 17th, he writes: "Last night the 
3rd and last of the Assembly Balls came off at 
Musical Fund Hall. It was a beautiful night. 
Since the last Assembly several deaths have oc- 
curred and among those prevented from coming 
were the Misses Smith, Miss Wharton, Miss Scott, 
Mockwill, Lewis, etc., etc. The ball opened about 
9 ^ o'clk. and broke up about 2 y^. A. M., with 
three cheers for the managers." 

The next autumn, on October 24th, 1849, Mr. 
Lewis makes this entry h propos of the Assemblies: 

"Yesterday afternoon a meeting of the members 
of the Assemblies of last winter was held at Musical 
Fund Hall for the purpose of electing Managers 
for this winter which resulted as follows: 

"Married Single 

" I. John M. Scott I. W. W. Fisher 

2. Jos. Swift 2. B. W. Ingersoll 

3. Benj. Rush 3. Alex. Biddle 

4. Man^ G. Evans 4. W. C. Twells 

5. Thos. Cadwalader 5. Jim Blight 

6. Richard Vaux 6. S. Morris Wain." 

As we learn, however, from Joseph Swift's jour- 
nal, as well as an invitation card for the season 



124 THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. 

of 1849-50, there were some slight changes in this 
list of managers before the invitations were sent 
out and the balls were given. Mr. Swift on Novem- 
ber 12th, 1849, makes this entry in his journal: 
"Met the Managers of the Dancing Assembly at 
the Musical Fund Hall in Locust Street. They 
are, John M. Scott, Thomas Cadwalader, Joseph 
Swift, Charles Willing, M. D., Richard Vaux, M. G. 
Evans, James H. Blight, B. W. Ingersoll, Wm. T. 
Twells, Alexr. Biddle, Wm. W. Fisher and Ber- 
nard Henry, Jr." And an Assembly card for the 
season of 1849-50, when three Assemblies were 
given at Musical Fund Hall, at Locust and South 
Eighth Streets, is thus inscribed: 

"Assemblies 

"The Honor of Mr. Thomas Balch's 

"Company is requested for the season. 



"John M. Scott 
Thomas Cadwalader 
Joseph Swift 
Charles Willing 
Richard Vaux 
M. G. Evans 



Managers 



James H. Blight 
B. W. Ingersoll 
William T. Twells 
Alexander Biddle 
WiUiam W. Fisher 
Bernard Henry, Jr. " 



Among the list of managers for the season of 
1 849-50, twelve in number or three times the num- 



THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. 125 

ber of managers of one hundred and one years 
earlier, two of the names that were in the original 
subscription Hst appear, those of Swift and Willing, 
and the former of those two names was also among 
the first Board of Managers. Of the managers 
in 1849-50, Thomas Cadwalader was at the time 
President of the Philadelphia Club, and Joseph 
Swift and Richard Vaux subsequently filled that 
distinguished position. On January i8th, 1884, 
Richard Vaux was elected to membership in the 
American Philosophical Society. 

Mr. Balch, who had studied at Colvimbia College 
and also had been admitted to the Bar in New 
York City in 1845, upon coming in 1849 to live 
in Philadelphia, was invited at once to subscribe 
to the Assembly balls for the season of 1849-50. 
A Virginian by birth, but a Marylander by descent 
and so belonging to a family that was divided 
by the Civil War, Thomas Balch proposed in an 
interview with President Lincoln in November, 
1864, and then in an open letter which was printed 
in the New York Tribune, May 13, 1865, that the 
Alabama claims should be referred for judicial 
settlement to an International Judicial Tribunal. 
Thanks to the eminent British jurist, John West- 
lake, that letter was reprinted two years later 



126 THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. 

in England in the journal of the Social Science 
Association, March 15, 1867, thereby placing the 
idea of submitting the Alabama claims to the 
judgment of an International Tribunal squarely 
before the men who, like Gladstone and Sir Stafford 
Northcote, governed Great Britain. And the latter, 
it should not be forgotten, was one of the negotiators 
in 1 87 1 of the Treaty of Washington. In that 
way step by step, the acorn planted in the inter- 
view with President Lincoln, gradually grew into 
the oak or International Tribunal that sat at 
Geneva in 1871-72, and decided the rights of the 
United States of America with Great Britain in 
the Alabama claims case by a judicial decision with- 
out the shedding of a drop of blood.^° Those who 
believe in the influence of heredity, may find some 
interest in the fact that the original proposer of 
the Geneva Tribunal not only was the son of a 
judge, but also that through Robert Brooke of 
England and Maryland, he descended from Sir 
Thomas Forster, judge of the Court of Common 
Pleas of England from 1607 to 161 2, and likewise 
was a kinsman of the great Federal Chief Justice, 
Roger Brooke Taney. In the words of Milton, truly 
"Peace hath her victories 
No less renowned than war. " 

^° Thomas Balch: International Courts of Arbitration, 1874: sixth 
edition, Philadelphia, 1915. 



THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. 127 

Thomas Balch's history of the French expedi- 
tionary force under Count Rochambeau in America 
during the Revolutionary War, Les Frangais en 
Amerique,^^ made it possible over two score years 
ago for the French to read in their own tongue 
how their fathers aided Washington and his troops 
to bring about the surrender of Yorktown. 

XIX. 

Of the three balls given in the winter of 1849-50, 
at Musical Fimd Hall, Joseph Swift and Francis 
L. Lewis give us short glimpses. Mr. Swift writes: 

"December 19th, 1849. Wednesday. 

"The first Assembly at the Musical Fund Hall. 
I went at 9 % and remained until 3 A. M., a large 
and brilliant party, very pleasant and a success." 
Mr. Lewis says: 

Dec. 20th, 1849. "Last night the first Assembly 
came off at Musical Fund Hall. The ball opened 
about 10 o'clock. I went with Miss Douglas and 
handed her into the room with the Bridal party 
[probably Mr. and Mrs. Lewis C. Norris (Miss 
McKee) married Dec. 5th.] It certainly was the 
handsomest ball ever given in this city. Breiter's 

®^ Thomas Balch: Les Frangais en Amerique pendant la guerre 
de VlndSpendance des £,tats-Unis, 1777-1783; Paris, 1872. 



128 THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. 

Band was engaged and played admirably. He 
composed a new polka for the occasion. The 
principal belles were Miss Douglas, to whom I 
sent a bouquet, Miss Scott, Miss Coleman, Miss 
McKnight and Miss Wilcox. I. Banker and Bill 
Camac came home with me 'to smoke a cigar.'" 

Mr. Swift makes this entry a propos of the second 
assembly. 

"1850, January i6th, Wednesday, 2d Assembly 
at the Musical Fund. I went with Genl. T. Cad- 
walder; home at 2 A. M. (17) ; a large and brilliant 
party." 

Of the same ball, Mr. Lewis writes: 

January 17th, 1850. "Last night the second 
Assembly came off at Musical Fund Hall. It was 
the most magnificent Ball ever given in this city. 
The room was decorated with real flowers, Breiter's 
Band was engaged and there were a great number 
of strangers from Boston, New York and Baltimore. 
I was introduced to Miss Lawrence of New York. 
The supper was very good. After the Ball, Norris, 
Cox, Camac and Willing went with Shober & I 
to our Club, where we smoked a cigar." 

Mr. Swift, who was one of the managers, barely 
notes the third Ball as follows: 

"1850, April 3rd, Wednesday, 3rd Assembly." 



THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. 129 

But Mr. Lewis, who was a younger man, and 
fond of dancing, had more to say of the dance 
than Mr. Swift. He writes: 

April 4th, 1850. "Last night was held the last 
Assembly Ball at Musical Fund Hall. The room 
was magnificently decorated with natural flowers. 
It was rather slim in attendance, but I danced 
with Miss McKee, Miss Cochran, Miss Snelling, 
Miss McKnight, etc. Had Breiter's Band who 
played very well. This ball, like the last of last 
year, was not well attended owing to a ntmiber 
of deaths which prevented 35 or 40 ladies from 
being present." 

As the city grew in population and the means of 
communication improved, other forms of entertain- 
ment grew up. As a result a smaller number of 
"Assembly" dances gradually came to be given in 
any one season. Thus, during the winter of 1849-50, 
we have learnt from the journals of Joseph Swift, 
a manager, and Mr. Lewis, that three Assemblies 
were held in Musical Fund Hall, a building still 
standing at the southwest comer of Eighth and 
Locust Street. That was just one-third of the 
number given one hundred and one years earlier. 

The following letter, written in the autumn of 
1850, tells something of the management for the 



-VTw^rv^. 



'yl^ 



130 THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. 

t 




'^C/V/U^-^- 







THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. 131 

season of 1850-51 and it is of interest to note that 
all three of the surnames appearing in the letter 
are to be found in the first list of subscribers and 
one also among the first board of managers for the 
season of 1748-49. 

"No. 30 South 5th Street. 
"Dear Sir: 

"I have the honour to inform you that at a 
meeting of the Board of Managers of the Phila- 
delphia Assemblies held last evening, you were 
unanimously elected a member of the Board. 

"The next meeting will be held at the office of 
Peter McCall, Esq., to-morrow evening at 6 o'clock. 
The favour of an answer is requested. 

" By order of the Board 

"W. SHIPPEN, Jr. 

^^ Secretary. 
"Joseph Swift, Esq. 

"Nov. 12, 1850." 

That letter tells us the names of two of the 
managers for 1850-51, those of Joseph Swift and 
Peter McCall. In view of Mr. Lewis's statement, 
however, that the previous season the managers 
were elected by a popular vote of the subscribers, 
it is not certain that William Shippen, Jr.,"was a 



Iv32 THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. 

manager. It was more likely that he was the 
secretary of the meeting of the subscribers that 
elected the managers. But in any case, as we 
shall see further on, William Shippen, Jr., was a 
manager the next season. 

XX. 

On July 15th, 1850, the Philadelphia Club, or 
"The Philadelphia Association and Reading Room, " 
the name under which it was then incorporated, 
purchased its present home, 1301 Walnut Street, 
at the northwest comer of Walnut and Thirteenth 
Streets. The Club bought in 1850 only the house 
abutting on Walnut Street, known as the Butler 
property, covering about one-third of the property 
which it now possesses. The two adjoining proper- 
ties opening on Thirteenth Street were acquired 
subsequently. The deed for the Butler house 
having been made in the first instance to Joseph 
Swift, on Monday, November i8th, 1850, he deeded 
the property over to the Philadelphia Association 
and Reading Room, the deed being witnessed by 
Edward Shippen, Charles Willing and Peter Mc- 
Call; and the same day the Club moved from 
the Hemphill House to its new quarters. During 
the winter of 1850-51, to celebrate the occupancy 



THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. 133 

of its new home, the Club gave a dance or ball. 
It was the first of three notable entertainments 
to which the Philadelphia society of those days 
was bidden. They were all three given on suc- 
cessive Thursdays in 1851. The first was given 
by the Philadelphia Club in its new home; the 
second of the series of "private Assemblies," as the 
late Mrs. William P. Tathem, who attended them 
all three, as Miss Catherine K. Biddle, once spoke 
of them, was given by Mrs. George Willing in her 
house in Girard Row, that is one of the houses on 
the north side of Chestnut Street, between Eleventh 
and Twelfth Streets, for her grand-daughter, Miss 
Emily Swift, a debutante who afterwards became 
Mrs. Thomas Balch; and the third was given by 
Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Cadwalader in their house, 
Hkewise in Girard Row, for their daughter. Miss 
Emily Cadwalader, also a debutante, who later 
became Mrs. William Henry Rawle. At two of 
those entertainments at least, as well as at the 
Assemblies themselves, the musicians and the 
waiters were negroes. 

In the early fifties, Mr. and Mrs. Horace Binney 
gave a dance in their house on South Fourth Street, 
It stood on ground upon which the Pennsylvania 
Railroad subsequently built its offices, between the 



134 THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. 

house of J. R. Ingersoll at the comer of Fourth 
Street and WilHng's Alley to the north and th6 
house of John Sargent to the south. As the dance 
was closing a yoimg lady, who is still living, in 
coming down the stairs, saw Mr. and Mrs. Bihney 
waltzing in the parlor. 

The invitation card of Miss Newman, ^^ for the 
winter of 1852-53, the season of her debut, tells 
who were the Assembly managers that winter. 

"Assemblies. 

" The Honor of Miss Newman's 

"Company is requested for the Season. 

"Thomas Cadwalader, ) ( Lewis A. Scott 

Henry Ralston, ) ( Henry E. Drayton 

'^Managers 

Peter McCall ) ( WilHam Shippen, Jr. 

Charles Henry Fisher ) (Winthrop Sargent." 

Miss Newman made her debut in the winter of 
1852-53 and married in June, 1853, Dr. Charles 
Carter, of Virginia. 

XXI. 

Mrs. Thomas Balch has told the writer that 
Dr. Alexander Wilcocks was a manager one season 
in the fifties, the last time they were given before 

^^ Gommttnicated by her daughter, Mrs. George McGall. 



THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. 135 

the Civil War, and he showed her at one of the 
balls that season, in the early part of the evening, 
all over the hall, including the arrangements for 
supper. The late Dr. Richard A. Cleemann, who 
was twice a manager after the Civil War, likewise 
both told and wrote the author that Dr. Wilcocks 
was a manager the last year the Assemblies were 
given in the fifties. So it would seem that the 
balls were given in the winter of 1853-54, ^^^ possi- 
bly even later in the fifties. In those days the 
musicians were darkies, and so likewise the waiters 
and the cooks. And the food our elders all tell 
us was delicious. It was served at a long buffet 
table, an idea which had come originally from 
France in the time of the First Empire. It was 
only after the Civil War that white musicians were 
employed, and not until 1905 did the darky 
cooking and waiting give way to white cooking and 
waiting. 

Dr. Alexander Wilcocks and his two sisters lived 
with their uncle, Joseph R. IngersoU, in a hand- 
some double house at the corner of Fourth Street 
and Willing's Alley. One of the sisters married 
Harry McCall, the other sister, Mary Wilrocks, 
after her uncle's death, married Kirk Wells, who 
came from New England. Dr. Cleemann who was 



136 THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. 

a manager after the war, was one of twin brothers 
who, until the doctor shaved his beard, were often 
mistaken for one another. Thus when they were 
boys, during a visit one Saturday afternoon to 
some friends at the country place of the latter 
on the Delaware River, one of the twins, who 
was dressed in white, tumbled into the mud and 
when it was time to leave, the brother whose suit 
was unsoiled and also white, went up to the host 
and hostess twice, first to say good-bye for himself 
and the second time for his brother, without the 
trick being detected. On another occasion at a 
party given by Mrs. Benjamin Rush at her house 
on Chestnut Street, when one of the Cleemann 
twins, who had been there some time came up 
to bid her good-bye, she said in her most charming 
manner: "I am so sorry you are going so soon," 
mistaking him for his brother who had come but 
a few minutes before. And in more recent years, 
at a dinner party at which the doctor was dining, 
a stranger, to the silent amusement of all present 
asked Dr. Cleemann whether he was younger or 
older than his brother, Ludovic Cleemann. The 
father of the Cleemanns had come to Philadelphia 
from the Lithuanian Provinces of Russia, where 
their grand-father, a Lutheran clergyman, had held 



THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES: 137 

the prevotship of a large number of churches. 
Every one, whether old or young, who knew Dr. 
Cleemann, will surely testify to the doctor's soft, 
charming manners. It was William of Wykeham, 
founder of New College, Oxford, and Winchester 
School, who said: "Manners myketh man." And 
Richard Cleemann, who was a good physician, in 
his manners showed in every respect that he was a 
thoroughbred as well as, in the best sense of the 
word, a man of the world. 

In the later fifties the Assemblies apparently 
were discontinued. But a Bachelors's Ball was 
given several seasons, perhaps every year imtil 
the war. The late Travis Cochran told the writer 
such a ball was held in 1857. 

In looking over the history of the Assemblies 
it is to be noted that the managers have some times 
been chosen by a vote of the subscribers, and some 
times they have been a self appointing body. Thus 
in colonial days, as it is proved by the second rule 
of the Assembly rules of 1748-49, the managers 
were chosen by a majority vote of the subscribers. 
On the contrary, from the note written about 1829-30 
by Joshua Francis Fisher to James Rush,^^ it is 



£3 



See ante page 113. 



138 THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. 

known that in those times the managers were a 
self perpetuating body. A century after the Assem- 
blies began, however, Mr. Lewis in his journal 
tells us, October 24th, 1849, that the Assembly 
managers were elected by a popular vote of the 
subscribers for the season of 1849-50. And the 
letter written on November 12th, 1850, by William 
Shippen, Jr., to Joseph Swift, apprising the latter 
of his election for the winter of 1850-51 as a man- 
ager, would seem to point, taken in conjunction 
with Mr. Lewis's statement, also to a popular 
election as the manner of choosing managers for 
the season of 1850-51. Again in later years the 
managers have chosen their successors. 

XXIL 

In the early days of Philadelphia, the important 
citizens of the town lived on the streets rtmning 
north and south that were close to the river. Thus 
Edward Shippen's house was close to Dock Creek, 
now Dock Street. A picture, showing the Port of 
Philadelphia in 1720, painted by Peter Cooper, 
hangs in the Library Company of Philadelphia on 
Locust Street and shows the location of the homes 
of a number of leading Philadelphians of that 
day all close to the river. As time passed, the 



THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. 139 

notable people of the town all lived south of Market 
Street and began to move westward. Thus South 
Third Street became the most fashionable part of 
the town, though Pine Street was also the home of 
some important personages. For example, the Rev. 
Doctor Robert Blackwell, who served as surgeon to 
the First Pennsylvania Line at Valley Forge 
and was elected to membership in the Amer- 
ican Philosophical Society, January i6th, 1784, 
lived in a house which still stands on the south 
side of Pine Street between Second and Third 
Streets. Its red and black brick front stands 
out conspicuously and the onlooker cannot mis- 
take it. Indeed, it is the finest example of a 
private dwelling of colonial Philadelphia that 
has come down to us. It was built originally 
about 1750 by Mayor Stamper. In Doctor 
Blackwell's day the garden extended westward 
all the way to Third Street. Likewise the Powell 
House still stands on the west side of South 
Third Street between Willing's Alley and Spruce 
Street. Then later on. South Fourth Street gained 
prestige as the abode of the social world. After 
that Chestnut Street, moving further and further 
west almost up to Broad, became the most fashion- 
able street of the town. Gradually Chestnut Street 



140 THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. 

ceded the premitre position to Walnut Street which 
in turn has been supplanted b}- Spruce Street. In 
the last few decades many people have moved out 
beyond the built up portions of the town, north- 
ward and westward, thereb}' di\'iding the fashion- 
able quarters of the city into a city quarter strictly 
spealdng and one or more other quarters in semi- 
rural suri'oundings, partly within and partly without 
the legal limits of the town. In all the migrations 
of the fashionable people of Philadelphia, however, 
so far as the old city is concerned, they have chosen, 
except at the beginning w^hen the river front was 
considered the most desirable quarter, to live 
south of Market Street. And so to the quarter 
of the towai Ijdng between the Delaw^are and the 
Schu^dkill Rivers and Chestnut and Pine Streets, 
a name designating wiiat w^as in times passed the 
distinctive aristocratic portion of the most beautiful 
city in the world may appropriately be applied, that 
of Quarticr Saint Germain. 

XXIII. 

During the four years of the Civil War, from 
1 86 1 to 1865, wiien the Union was fighting for 
its existence as one great Nation, and the tide 
of battle, in the most memorable battle of the 



THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. 141 

war, rolled close to Philadelphia, the Assemblies 
as well as the balls of the Bachellors were entirely 
discontinued. But after the close of that great 
contest when the long struggle between the States 
had ceased and peace once more reigned in the 
land, the Assemblies were revived in the winter of 
1865-66 at the American Academy of Music at 
Broad and Locust Streets. That plain but sub- 
stantial building was built during the fifties, largely 
through the energy of George S. Pepper and Mr. 
Budd; and within its walls many great singers, 
BrignoH, Gazziniga, Patti, Campanini, Matema, 
Lehmann, Emil Fischer and others have regaled 
Philadelphia with much notable and splendid opera 
ranging from Traviata (with which the house was 
opened), Martha, and Faust to the Ring of the 
Nibeltmgen and the Meistersinger von Niim- 
berg. 

The Academy of Music is so admirable to sing 
or speak in, that it has ranked third among the 
opera houses and other buildings of the world 
noted for their acoustic properties, in that respect 
coming immediately after the IMormon Temple in 
Salt Lake Cit}' and La Scala Theater in Milan. 

From the invitation of ]Mr. and Mrs. Church- 
man, that belonged to their son, the late William 



142 THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. 

Churchman, we learn that three Assemblies were 
given in 1866. The patronesses, six in number, 
were Mrs. Hartman Kuhn, Mrs. Harry McCall, 
Mrs. Charles Macalester, Jr., Mrs. Francis Peters, 
Mrs. George Blight, and Mrs. Edward Morrell. 
The managers were Dr. Wilcocks, who was a mem- 
ber before the Civil War, William Henry Rawle, 
Edward Coles, Jr., Colonel Charles E. Cadwalader, 
William Piatt Pepper and C. Julian Hare. The 
number of subscribers was limited to three hundred 
and fifty. Those were individual subscriptions. 
As the fifty-nine subscriptions for the first season 
of 1748-49 included for the subscribers who were 
married invitations for the immediate members of 
their families, a custom that was kept up until 
the middle of the nineteenth century, it may be 
inferred that at the first Assemblies from a hundred 
and twenty-five up to possibly two hundred indi- 
viduals were invited to attend. And so the As- 
semblies immediately after the Civil War were not 
very much larger than the Assemblies of 1748-49. 
The subscription was placed at twelve dollars for 
three balls that were to be given in the Foyer 
of the Academy of Music on Monday, January 15th, 
Tuesday, January 30th, and Thursday, February 8th. 
However, in 1870 only two balls were given; the 



THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. 143 

first on Friday January 21st, and the last on Tues- 
day, March ist. Supper was served at eleven and 
the cotillion began at midnight. 

A feature of the balls at the Academy until 
about 1897 were the arrangements for supper, which 
was served on a very long table in the large entrance 
corridor immediately below the Foyer. Seated on 
the steps of the two stairs leading up from this 
corridor to the galleries above were all the girls 
and young married women. They were served 
by their supper partners, and looking down from 
their places of vantage made a beautiful picture 
to look upon. The patronesses were seated at a 
small table especially provided for them. Finally, 
more small tables were introduced for the older 
matrons. In 1897, the Assembly, having grown very 
much in nvimbers, the stage of the Academy and 
the parquet, which were floored over for the occasion, 
were used for the supper. But this did not enlarge 
the dancing floor, which was bound by the size of 
the Foyer. 

When first revived after the Civil War three 
balls were given each season, but soon the number 
was decreased to only two. At the Academy of 
Music they were given with unvarying regularity 
for almost thirty years, including the winter of 



144 THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. 

1903-04. In the winter of 1904-05, owing to the 
increase in the number of subscribers, because of 
the accretions from the growing up of sons and 
daughters of subscribers, and the gradual addition 
of many new famiHes to the subscription Hst, the 
pressing need of a greater amount of square inches, 
caused the balls to be transferred to the handsome 
and larger ball room of the Bellevue-Stratford 
Hotel, also on South Broad Street. Since that time 
two balls have been given each year at the Bellevue, 
except that in the winter of 19 14-15, owing to the 
breaking out of The Great War, but one Assembly 
was given. 

When the Assemblies were given at the Academy 
of Music, they closed at three o'clock in the morn- 
ing, doubtless because that was the regulation 
hour for the closing of the Academy. When 
they were removed to the Bellevue at first they 
lasted until five, but after two or three years the 
Managers made it a rule that they should stop 
promptly at four. In glancing over the history 
of these famous entertainments, it becomes ap- 
parent that the hour at which the balls have begun 
has moved slowly but surely nearer and nearer 
to the day after that for which the invitations 
were extended, until they now open at the same 



THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. 145 

hour at which Cinderella lost her fur^* slipper when 
she was forced by the decree of the fairy God- 
mother to leave the Prince's ball. 

Since the Civil War times, the balls, keeping 
pace with the growing city, have grown and grown, 
as more and more people have sought the "patent 
of nobility" that the right to subscribe to them 
is popularly supposed to accord in Philadelphia, 
until, as compared with the old Assemblies when 



^* The modem popular mistaken version of Cinderella's tale, that, 
in her hurried flight from the Prince's ball after the midnight hour 
had struck, she dropped on the Palace stairs a glass slipper instead 
of one of fur, is doubtless due to the similarity of pronunciation of 
the two French words verre and vair. The former word, verre, means 
glass. Of the latter word, vair, which means a certain kind of fur, 
Littr^, in his celebrated Dictionnaire de la Langue Frangaise (Paris, 
1873), says: "Vair; Anciennement, fourrure de la peau d'une 
espece d'^cureuil, du meme nom, qui 6tait colombine par-dessus 
et blanc par-dessous: c'est ce qu'on nomme aujourd'hui petit gris. 
Le roi, deux fois par an, distribuait des manteaux rouges fourrds 
d'hermine ou de menu vair aux chevaliers qu'il retenait aupres de sa 
personne. 

"Rem. C'est parce qu'on n'a pas compris ce mot maintenant 
peu usit6 qu'on a imprim6 dans plusieurs editions du conte de 
Cendrillon souliers de verre (ce qui est absurde), au lieu de souliers 
de vair, c'est-^-dire souliers fourr^s de vair." 

Those who do not read French, will find something interesting 
on this point in the eleventh edition of the Encyclopaedia Briiannica, 
in the article d propos of Cinderella. 



146 THE PHILADELPHIA ASSEMBLIES. 

John Swift, John Inglis, John Wallace and Lynford 
Lardner sent out the invitations for the small 
dances they managed, the present balls, by com- 
parison, have assumed "continental proportions.'* 

XXIV. 

The foregoing brief account of the Assembly 
Balls of the past, together with more or less mention 
of notable Philadelphians of earlier days, many 
of whom in the hurry and bustle of the every day 
life of the present are all but forgotten, has sug- 
gested that this book might well be ended with 
some lines from a sonnet of Charles Lamb, which 
the present writer quoted in a paper he read before 
the American Philosophical Society on April i8th, 
1902, h propos of the First Assembly Account Book. 
The poet says: 

' ' 'Tis man's worst deed 
To let the things that have been run to waste. 
And in the unmeaning present sink the past: 
In whose dim glass even now I faintly read 
Old buried forms and faces long ago." 



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